Instinct
by Mistiec
Summary: When a string of assassinations take place in Los Angeles, the Angels are assigned to the case. But as all evidence begins to point to the Thin Man, Dylan and the Angels find themselves being torn apart. STORY COMPLETE.
1. Chapter One: The Murder

**Title: Instinct**  
**Author: Misty Flores**  
**Email: mistiec_**

Genre: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

Rating: PG-13 for now. R eventually for sexual situations, and violence.

Teaser: When a string of assassinations begin to erupt in Los Angeles, the Angels are assigned to the case. But as all evidence begins to point to the Thin Man, Dylan and the Angels find themselves being torn apart, as the truth, the lies, and Anthony himself threaten to overwhelm them all.

--

The magic of the red carpet was always a surprise.

Each premiere, each moment the limousine pulled up, and she waited, a breathless sigh taken in to steady herself before she pushed open the door, she was never quite ready for it.

The blinding flash of the lights, the cheers that erupted behind her as feet stomped with metal clangs on the bleachers, the reporters almost hoarse from calling out her name...

It was invigorating, intoxicating. The smile on her face was practiced, easy and natural. The small blemish on her right shoulder had been carefully covered in make up, her bare back was flawless, smooth.

Perfect.

Her rigid poise was almost painful, but she felt none of it tonight. Her name glittered in lights, billed first, before Jason Gibbons. It was her night.

Her entrance had been timed perfectly, just after Jason made his entrance. Her co-star was already halfway down the carpet, enduring what most called 'the necessary evil', namely: Joan Rivers. Now, the bulbs were on her.

With a graceful sweep of her hand, she turned, arms splayed out in a welcome to her adoring fans, who piled on top of each other on the bleachers to scream her name, beg for just a little bit of her attention.

The broken rib didn't ache. The stiletto heels didn't blister, and she was almost hot in her barely there clingy Valentino original, despite the fifty degree weather.

She was perfect. This was perfect: the one moment where critics, reporters, producers, and image consultants didn't matter.

The new action star. The first female actress to receive twenty five million for a movie. More than Jason Gibbons. More than any woman.

She was an independent, an anomaly, and even if this might be all over tomorrow, even if the movie curdled under the critics, and word of mouth might sink it (which would never happen. Even she knew - it was a good movie), tonight was still her night.

It was always her night.

As she smiled into Jason's eyes, tucked her hands companionably around his waist and posed for the cameras, she only noticed the way the cameras flashed quicker than before.

She never noticed the one that shot off in the distance, different, and louder and harsher than the others.

It was only when the bullet pierced her chest that her smile froze.

It was still her night. The cameras flashed, and Jason screamed hoarsely, but Annabeth Torres only lay on the red carpet, hot flaring pain bleeding from her chest. She realized, in her haze wracked awareness, that Jason had managed to spill something red all over himself. His palms were covered in it, and it was vibrant, more vibrant than the red carpet.

"Annabeth."

She tried to smile, attempted to move, but the pain was too much, entirely too much, and suddenly she was too tired. Entirely too tired.

It was her night.

She still believed that distinctly, even when her eyes closed.

--

It wasn't that Dylan Sanders didn't appreciate Natalie's attempts.

Natalie didn't have an insincere bone in her body. Until Dylan had met the blonde supermodel lookalike, she didn't think those girls you read about in romance novels, the ones who never knew they were beautiful, even when they literally stopped traffic, actually existed.

But Natalie wore a retainer, and her blonde locks were messily pulled into a haphazard pony tale, and the girl still looked gorgeous.

Dylan reordered her bootshod feet, recrossing them over the dresser. She cocked her head, studying Natalie as she unslung the bag from her shoulder and smiled brightly.

"Okay! I got them all. The World News, the Wall Street Journal, and most importantly..." Natalie paused for effect, seconds before she gleefully shook out the latest purchase. "Cosmo!'

Dylan's previous pout somehow magically managed to push upwards, until she displayed a small smirk.

"Natalie, we JUST got back from China. Remember China?"

"Of course, I remember China," she responded, plopping down on Dylan's unmade bed and flipping through the magazine. "Ooh! 'Twenty Ways to Go Down on Your Lover'!"

Dylan sighed. Sliding her boots off the dresser, she leaned forward, palm pushing down the pages to get Natalie's attention. "Do you also remember how we literally fell OFF the Great Wall of China? Remember my bruised ribs?"

"Mmmhmm." Natalie clearly didn't see where this was going. She only grinned happily back, obviously lost in the memory. "Remember getting chased through Beijing and hiding in the Geisha house? Alex really got us through that one."

Dylan blinked. "Yes. But I'm not trying to reminisce. Though that was fun," she admitted. Minutes later, she regained her concentration. "Remember the whole thing about Charlie saying we could take a vacation?"

"We ARE on a vacation!"

Dylan's eyes narrowed. "I don't call running ten miles, then heading through the LAPD obstacle course and coming home to get caught up with current events from ten different magazines and journals a vacation, Nat."

And of course that was when she completely lost Natalie. Natalie was a five time Jeopardy champion. Natalie's idea of a quiet, easy read wasn't Dylan's latest copy of 'Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix', but Alex's wrinkled, well read edition of 'A Brief History of Time'.

Natalie had been having the time of her life.

Still, she seemed to understand. With a gracious smile, she made a show of putting the Cosmo to the side, pulling up her legs to hug them against her chest, rocking back and forth.

"Okay. Well, what do you want to do?"

With a grimace, Dylan fingered her bandaged ribs gently. "Sleep?"

"Not an option! Come on, Dylan! Pete's working all night, Alex is with her dad, and this is the only time it's me and you time. I don't want to spend me and you time sleeping."

Natalie had always made a point to spend what she termed as 'quality time' with her after Dylan's brief abandonment of the group. While she enjoyed the attention immensely, (believe it or not, one could never really have too much Natalie) Dylan had come to suspect that Natalie was slowly attempting to become her own personal baby sitter.

"Fair enough." In the corner, a small yelp was heard before nails clicked on the floorboard and a soft brown fuzz of fur with a moist mouth and a sloppy tongue hurtled into Dylan's arms. Dylan's bungalow at the Chateau Marmont was messy and cluttered, but it was home, and Spike, Natalie and Pete's five month old golden retriever, was never happier than when he was chewing one of Dylan's rock band t-shirts to bits.

She retrieved what appeared to be a remnant of her Judas Priest from his mouth.

Natalie winced. "Sorry?"

Spike gave a happy grin and sloppily licked Dylan's ear. "Eww! Cute, but eww!" she laughed, rubbing at the dog's head. Looking over him to Natalie, she finally made her choice, bruised ribs be damned. "Late night surfing over by Point Dume?"

"Ooh! Totally!" Natalie hopped to her feet, arms held out for her precious Spike, and kissing him messily, finally allowed Dylan to start picking the hairs off her shirt.

Shaking her head in morose amusement, Dylan grinned. "I'll just go get dressed then..."

"Okay!"

Stripping off her shirt with a wince, Dylan pulled open a drawer. "Should we wetsuit it?"

"It's going to be at least forty in the water. I think we should."

"Okay," she said, pulling out a red and white polka dot bikini.

She was debating the use of her orange or red board when the phone rang. Immediately, Natalie picked up, offering a cheery hello as she settled on Dylan's bed and idly picked up the remote.

When her expression immediately grew somber, Dylan paid attention.

"Alex?" Dylan's brow furrowed when Natalie's eyes grew wide. With a frantic wave, she motioned Dylan over. "What? Okay-"

Dylan's mouth was dry as Natalie blindly reached for her hand, squeezing it tight.

"We'll be right there," she finally said.

"What?" Dylan demanded. "What is it?"

Clicking the phone shut, Natalie's expression was worried and grim. "We need to go to Alex's now. It's Jason."

--

"I miss my car," Dylan grumbled, slipping the gearshift of the rented Corvette, and pushing down on the pedal.

Natalie said nothing in return, but Dylan didn't really expect a response. This situation was tense, and her own multisyllabic ramblings were only a byproduct of her worry.

Alex Munday often gave off a very frigid first appearance. Dylan remembered her own impression of Alex had been less than gracious. Stone cold, bitch personified. Dylan had written her off in seconds.

She had since learned to never take anything at face value. Alex was a certified genius. She had experienced more triumph in her lifetime than Dylan had heartbreak, and that was saying a lot. Before her and Natalie, her closest relationship had been with her father, the rest of her life eaten up by the Olympics, then NASA, and everything in between.

The result was a beautiful, distant woman who trusted nothing but her friends and her family. Alex never volunteered information. Things had to be pried. It wasn't that Alex kept secrets, but she was a private person. Dylan hadn't even found out about her and Jason's break up until they were halfway to China.

Even then, Alex insisted she was fine with it. 'He's getting too big', she would say. 'It's too much of a risk being seen with him. What about my secret identity?'.

Natalie had later commented privately, it was really, 'He's getting too close'.

Pounding on the brake, and gritting her teeth as she jerked the wheel, Dylan slid the car into the only available parking space. Hollywood Hills was a bitch for parking.

"What do we know?" she asked as they ran up the steps.

"Attack at the premiere of the new movie," Natalie responded. "That's all I could get out of her."

Dylan nodded mechanically. Natalie, being of longer limbs, reached the door first.

Her hand was not even close to the doorknob when it opened.

Alex's face was pale, her mouth drawn in a thin, closed line. "It's on the television," she said crisply.

She left the door ajar, leaving them to follow her into the main living room, where her father was standing, watching the set with his arms crossed.

At the sight of them, he stiffened considerably, and barely managed a smile. "Hello... uh... girls."

"Mr. Munday," Dylan said, nodding her head before turning her attention back to the television set.

"Officials are still unsure where the sniper hit, or even why he struck, but what can be confirmed is that the world did indeed lose a great celebrity."

"Oh my God," Natalie gasped, hand immediately going for Alex's shoulder.

"It's not him," Alex said quickly, but her own hand tangled with Natalie's, the other reaching for Dylan's as the redhead slid an arm around her waist. "It's-"

"Annabeth Torres, distinctly known for being the highest paid working actress today, after her twenty-five million dollar paycheck for 'Cash Craze', died this evening on the red carpet."

The paparazzi pictures flashed the grim story, and Dylan stood still while Natalie raised a palm to her mouth, eyes wide with shock.

"Didn't we know her?"

Alex didn't say a word, and Dylan knew the reason why. A bloody, grim Jason Gibbons was waving off cameras as he stepped into the limousine, surrounded by security.

"Thus far, the police have not been able to locate a suspect, although they do urge that anyone with any information call the following hotline."

"That could have been Jason," Alex breathed. Her hand was clutching Dylan's forearm so tightly it was painful. "She was standing right next to him. It could have been him-"

"But it wasn't," Dylan said soothingly. Palm gently smoothing over Alex's head, her worried glance met Natalie's, but the other Angel had nothing to say. Her mouth was pursed, and the blonde was shaking her head.

"We should call him," she said finally, letting go of Alex to go to a phone.

"No." Alex's tone was sharp. "No. I just wanted to make sure that he was fine. I don't want..."

"Alex, you should call-"

"I said no." Alex swallowed hard, and immediately, she strode to the television set, flicking it off with a switch of the remote.

Dylan's posture was uncomfortable. The paparazzi pictures lodged themselves into her brain, each snapshot flashing into her vision. Two chest wounds. Dark black stain of blood staining the white dress. Annabeth Torres.

"Damn," she whispered, rubbing at her neck. "This is seriously suck-y."

"Ferret?" Mr. Munday's hands were rubbing at his child's shoulders soothingly. "Perhaps I should call-"

"No. Daddy, thank you, but... Jason isn't my boyfriend anymore. I just wanted to make sure that he was..." With a deep breath in, Alex closed her eyes and attempted to compose herself. "Thank you," she said after a moment. "I guess I just freaked out a little."

"I'll make you a tea," Natalie said finally. Her gaze caught Dylan's, and when she motioned meaningfully towards the kitchen, Dylan immediately nodded.

"I'll help."

--

In the kitchen, Natalie's somber expression suddenly had just a little more grit. "A sniper killing an actress?"

"I know," Dylan agreed, voice low as she peaked into the living room. "I don't know."

"What if he...she-"

"Or it?" Dylan supplied helpfully.

"Thanks. What if he/she/it WAS going after Jason?" Natalie mused openly.

"I can't believe it was Annabeth," Dylan said grimly. "The girl wasn't all there sometimes but she was nice when she was."

The tinny ring of a phone and the vibrating pulse in her jeans no longer startled her the way it used to. In one swift motion, she slipped a palm into her pocket and pulled out the phone, almost in sync with Natalie.

The words were almost verbatim, and immediately she answered flatly, "Be right in," before snapping the phone shut and shrugging toward Natalie. "So much for a vacation."

In the living room, Alex was just slipping on her coat as they moved quickly across the floor.

Mr. Munday looked considerably confused.

"Charlie? Now?"

"It's important, Daddy. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Dylan's steps faltered at the look of utter dismay on Alex's father's face. "But Jason-"

"Duty calls," Natalie said sweetly, tossing the most disarming smile she could muster at the older man.

Dylan flashed her own good-bye grin before shutting the door. She blinked as she trotted down the stairs after them.

"Is it just me or was he ready to cry?"

"Yeah," Natalie replied. "Are you sure he's okay?"

Alex shrugged, opening the driver's side of her vehicle and sliding in. "He's just overprotective. He doesn't like his little girl getting dirty."

--

"Good evening, Angels."

"Good evening, Charlie," was the unanimous greeting. One by one, the girls walked quickly into the office, discarding purses and jackets on the way.

Leaning on the desk, bleary eyed and nursing a huge cup of coffee, was Bosley. "'Sup, Angels," he muttered, rubbing at his eyes.

"Late night, Bos?" Natalie asked.

"Hell no! I was sleeping until I heard about that actress getting shot up."

"I'm relieved to hear Jason is all right, Alex," Charlie toned from the speaker box.

Alex's response was a small smile and a nod, almost as if Charlie could see her.

"Charlie, is that why we're here?" Dylan queried, sitting back to cross her legs as she rubbed just under her nose. It was a gesture she did when she was nervous, and although she could think of no real reason to do it now, she still felt slightly uncomfortable.

"In part, Angels. Immediately after the assassination of Ms. Torres I received a call."

There was a second of silence before Bosley was jolted awake. "Oh, right! That's me! My bad." Reaching for the remote, he clicked on the high definition monitor that was above them.

A woman with short cropped hair and wearing a no nonsense business suit flickered on the screen .

"Good evening, Angels," she said.

"Good evening," each returned.

"Angels, meet Sergeant Mary Briggs. She's heading the investigation until it's handed over to the FBI."

"Normally, the LAPD doesn't like to hire outside help to solve the case," Mary began. Dylan cast a glance at Alex, but the Angel only had eyes for the screen. "However, with the FBI coming, and quite possibly the CIA, I'm afraid that this may all get tangled up in a battle for jurisdiction."

"So, we find out who shot Torres and catch the bad guy. That's simple, isn't it?" Natalie said, nodding quickly.

"I don't just want a seize and capture. After 9/11 there has been suspicion of terrorist attacks-"

"You think this is a terrorist threat?" Dylan asked the sergeant.

"It's not that hard a reach, Dylan," Charles said smoothly.

"That's right," Alex agreed. "There were threats against the major studios even after the war with Iraq."

"So killing a celebrity-" Natalie inserted.

"-would logically be the next step," finished Dylan.

"I want discreetness, Angels," Mary said crisply. "I want whoever behind this caught, I want their affiliation, and I want why. We can't take the risk that this was a one-shot deal."

Alex seemed unnaturally stiff. Her eyes flickered from the screen and to her hands. Immediately, Natalie's fingers tangled in hers.

"We'll catch them before they have a chance to shoot anyone else down."

"Good. Just make sure no one knows you're involved," Mary said crisply. "The last thing we need is the media thinking the LAPD can't handle it's own."

"You have nothing to worry about, Mary," Charlie said assuredly. "My Angels are the best there is."

She gave only a hint of a smile before she nodded at the Angels. "So I've heard. Good luck, ladies."

The screen blinked out.

Bosley shuddered. "Killing fine ass stars. Damn. That's just cold."

Dylan's eyes narrowed. "So we have to not only navigate through the LAPD, but the FBI and the CIA?"

"Piece of cake," Alex said crisply.

"We have to get this guy-"

"Could be a girl."

"Guy or Girl before he goes after anyone else," Natalie finished. When her eyes flashed meaningfully over the top of Alex's head to Dylan, the redhead nodded.

Jason.

"We should get to work," Alex said, uncrossing her legs, and straightening out the sleeves of her shirt.

"It's important to get started now before the trail goes cold," Charlie counseled.

Dylan gave a grim smirk. "Then I know just where to start."

"I have some scoping out to do myself," Natalie said, pushing up from the sofa and grabbing her purse.

"I'll drive," Alex said crisply.

Bosley took a chug of his coffee and launched from the desk, trailing after them. "Hey, where are you going?"

Dylan shrugged. "Where else? The morgue."

--


	2. Chapter Two: The Dancing Harlot

**Chapter Two**

Jacob was in love.

Okay, maybe it wasn't love. Maybe it was pure 'fire-in-your-groin', 'wanna-pound-her-until-she-screams' lust, but at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, he really didn't care to see the difference.

Most reporters, male and female, knew the common sense that came with all night stakeouts at the City Morgue. Sensible shoes. Clothes that breathe. The ability to pick up a microphone at a seconds notice and run as fast you could to the hot story lead.

She seemed to take everything he knew about reporting and give it a nice 'screw you'. Rounding the corner of the mortuary, she gave the pack of reporters a small smirk before clicking her way toward them. The stilettos were high, setting off a shapely calf and an almost too tight black skirt that did things to her ass that were... well, they inspired a lot of creativity. Her black blazer fluttered dangerously open, and the v-neck she wore underneath molded to her breasts so beautifully it was like it wasn't even there.

Jacob almost dropped his microphone.

The dark red hair hung down in corkscrew ringlets, framing her face, and as she sauntered over, she gave no indication about the stir she caused. Her press badge displayed on her chest, she looked like some proud peacock, and when she passed him, in a whiff of CKOne, the barely there tilt of her eyebrows before she looked away told him she knew what she was doing.

Oh yes, she knew.

The stakeout had been proving less than fruitful, ABC News Anchorman Jacob Wriley would have called it a night, had his editor not threatened to hang him by his balls in front of the entire office.

As a result, here he was, with twenty other unsuccessful reporters, waiting for a stupid statement that would probably tell them what they all already knew. This wasn't where the story was, and Jacob was impatient to move on to the Police Station.

But the little red-headed vixen apparently hadn't gotten the memo. She walked, trailing her cameraman behind her like a puppy on a string, microphone hanging daintily in her hand (and if that didn't give him some embarrassing visuals, he didn't know what did), heading toward the steps, where the police officer was waiting.

"John," she drawled, her voice carrying a little bit of husk to it. "How are you?"

The police officer looked startled. "Do I know you, ma'am?"

She smiled. Jacob waited with baited breath. "No. Would you like to?"

He coughed. The police officer shuddered, and she smiled.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so informal. I was just hoping to ask you for a couple questions."

"You know I'm not gonna say anything until we get the official word from the coroner."

Jacob edged forward, nearly bumping shoulders with Erick Santeros from NBC, to get closer.

The red-haired vixen threw a smirk back at her cameraman, who shifted under the weight of the camera and shrugged.

"Roberto, go get the equipment from the van," she said. "We might be here a while." Shouldering the camera, Roberto did. Turning back, she studied the police officer. With a long manicured arm she pulled the glass frames from her face, tilting her head sweetly. "Don't tell me you don't know anything."

"Ma'am..."

"It's just a couple questions," she purred.

He pulled at his collar, hands moving to settle uncomfortably on his waist. "Now, ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to move back there with all of them other..."

Jacob guessed that's when he realized that every other reporter was suddenly six inches behind her.

Looking back, she arched an eyebrow at the attention, and looked back to him. "Tell you what," she said decidedly. "I'll just... pull a couple things from what I know, maybe, you know, state them out loud, and you can just..." her finger swept across his eyebrow gently. "Rub your eye if it's a yes, maybe..." her hand now circled his gun, fingertip smoothing over the butt. "Clench that real tight if that's a no. How's that sound?"

"Ma'am..." Jacob had to give the police officer credit for his willpower. With her hand massaging his gun like that, Jacob would have dropped to his knees and begged for mercy about five minutes ago.

"I'm sure me and the boys here will be... really happy. Won't we?" she queried behind her. Immediately Jacob pushed forward.

"That's right, we would, John."

"Come on, John. We've been out here all night!"

"Give us a break."

She smiled, hands on her hips, and indicated behind her. "I don't even have my camera man. Off the record. Strictly. And John?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'd be the happiest."

He swallowed. Jacob gave him his best smile, pulling out his microphone eagerly.

John finally nodded.

--

The crowd began to go a little nuts, as the cameraman trudged around the building with his camera.

The bushes at the end of the mortuary were a welcome place to rest the weight of the camera, and this he did gratefully, pulling off the backpack and pawing through the contents.

With a quick glance at the crowd of raucous reporters with his in the middle, he quickly unsnapped the camera case, and pulled out a long bow.

It took two seconds to tap the second story window, another three to pull herself up, and thirty more to unlock it.

Alex Munday pulled off the mask, stretching under the crack she had made and sliding into the darkened hallway. Carefully, she unzipped the overalls, shaking out her hair as she did.

"Get in the kitchen," she whispered. "Bun's in the oven."

Two steps, and she was pressed against the wall. With a sharp intake, she listened carefully, ducking quickly to the other side and glancing back toward the wall.

The all black of her clothes made it easy to blend in, but Alex never took chances.

Hair was quickly pulled back into a pony tail, the badge was efficiently stuck on the appropriate position on her chest, and with her shoulders thrown back, and a severe expression now painted on her face, Alex Munday stepped to the elevator, pressed the button, and stepped in.

The mortuary was surprisingly deserted. Most of the crowd had gathered in the coffee room.

As famous as Annabeth Torres was, Alex decided, it wasn't exactly refreshing to be near her dead body.

It seemed to change things.

Still, the white lab coat was shrugged on. With a quick breath, she turned the knob and entered the cold room.

In her ear, the tinny rasp of Dylan and the other reporters became static-y, almost too loud for this place.

Alex paused, taking a moment to glance back at the closed door before heading straight to the compartment marked 'A. Torres'.

This could have been Jason.

The thought made her clench her fingers against the handle. Her eyes closed with a shuddering breath.

"Alex," she whispered. "Get a grip."

With a tug, she pulled out the body.

The clash of metal rolling on pins was grating on her ears, but suddenly, there she was, naked with wide, lifeless eyes.

Lifting a recorder from her pocket, Alex whispered, "Annabeth Torres. Age thirty-two."

Moving around the body, Alex glanced over it. Annabeth Torres. "Cause of death appears to be two gunshot wounds below the left sternum." Her fingertips gently prodded the holes. "Entrance wound is clean, with a rim of abrasion surrounding the wound, indicating the shot came from more than four feet away." She clicked off the recorder, and took a breath. "Holes are smaller, possibly a nine-millimeter-"

"Looks like a Luger to me."

Dylan's voice, interjected over the previous silence, almost startled Alex. The red-haired Angel was frowning, eyes locked on Alex from behind the fake 'Librarian-Whore' glasses, as she liked to call them.

"You okay?" she asked after a minute.

Alex didn't smile. Her hand eased off the recorder and she nodded. "Fine."

Dylan gave her a searching gaze, but gratefully, said nothing. Alex was glad for that. Unlike Natalie, who was full of well intentioned hugs and the need to talk, Dylan's support was more of the strong, silent, never press type.

Moving forward, and squeezing her friend's shoulder, Dylan took the lead. "Like I said, Luger."

"You think?" Alex prodded the hole.

"Almost positive. Which would make this weird."

Alex nodded, hands spread out as she squinted. "German. Not a very popular gun for assassins."

"Well... one did use it." Dylan's tone was odd. Her face was purposely on the body when she remarked, "The Thin Man used a Luger."

The Thin Man.

That was a subject Alex was never sure how to broach. She never quite believed what she saw on that rooftop. Dylan's penchant for falling for the bad guy had taken the weirdest turn ever when she kissed him, and even after he fell, Alex was still left trying to process the glimpse of what she had seen.

Dylan had never mentioned it again, but Alex hadn't forgotten. How could she?

Her eyes suddenly traveled down to Dylan's cleavage. A familiar looking silver medallion nestled between her breasts.

"He was no regular assassin," she finally settled for saying.

"Well, neither is this guy," Dylan said, almost a beat too late. "He's shooting in the chest."

Alex glanced down. Of course. How could she have missed that?

Meeting Dylan's eyes, she almost smiled. Clicking on the recorder, she began, "Gun shot wounds are believed to be from a nine millimeter Luger. Shots in the chest indicate it's not a professional sniper, which would in turn make this-"

"Personal," Dylan finished. They smiled grimly at each other. "Let's start with people she knows."

When the door clicked, the doorknob turning, neither was prepared for it.

--

Marlin Griffith was an ordinary man with a less than ordinary job.

No one ever set out to examine dead bodies for a living, but someone had to.

It was his job and he was good at it. But he was never exceptional, and his job, never more than normal.

Even today, he was told to wait until the medical examiner came. He wasn't even trusted to do a proper autopsy when it came to Annabeth Torres.

Black shoes squeaking, he turned the knob and stepped into the office.

Hmm. Someone had already left the body open.

Coming forward, he stepped forward, he peeled back the cloth.

"Mr. Griffith?"

With a yelp, Marlin leaped back, nearly tripping on Torres as two women stood in front of the doorway. He hadn't even heard the door open.

The one in the lab coat came forward. "My name is Tracy Yang, this is Detective Jayne," she indicated behind her. The red-head with the glasses nodded primly. "I wasn't aware that this case required your services."

"They all require my services," Marlin said stiffly. "Geez, scare the hell outta me why doncha."

Yang came forward, eyes on the body before she flickered up to him. "The Medical Examiner should be here shortly. Everything that needs to be done he is fully capable of doing."

"I'm just trying to save him some time."

"He doesn't need time, he needs a proper work space," Yang snapped.

Marlin blinked. Geez. What a bi-yatch.

"Look, Ms. Yang-"

"Dr. Yang."

"Dr. Yang, this is my office, and I'll thank you to leave. Let the Medical Examiner discuss it with me-"

"Mr. Griffith." Detective Jayne stepped forward. "We have strict orders here. Now I don't want to intrude upon your office, not at all. But this is clearly a sensitive case-"

"I know what kind of case it is-"

"And the Examiner was hoping for your help," she finished.

Marlin blinked. "He does?"

Yang rolled her eyes. "I'm going to get some coffee," she grumbled.

Jayne gave a smirk when the door slammed behind her. "Don't mind her. She's a little jealous."

Marlin grinned happily. "Hell, I'd be too."

Jayne smiled. "Now. About this body..."

--

The vintage Mercedes convertible was hardly a car that a Medical Examiner's Assistant could afford on her salary, but no one seemed to care.

Alex waited, pulling the scrunchy out of her hair, examining the rear view mirror.

Annabeth's lifeless eyes, withered where before they glowed, made her repress a shudder.

The opening of the car door, threw her focus, as Dylan slipped in, slamming it closed.

"So?" Alex asked, shooting her a smile.

"What we thought. Bullets were still in there." She gave a grin as she held up a small roll of clay. "Got the imprint."

"Great," Alex agreed. "I'll examine it in the lab when we get back."

"Definitely within twenty feet," Dylan added.

Alex curled out of the parking lot, cutting into traffic. "To make that shot and not get caught requires some skill."

"Or luck," Dylan mused. Alex glanced over. In her thought, Dylan's palm had snuck to the small silver charm, and she was caressing it idly.

Alex's glare seemed to unnerve her, because she stopped soon after.

--

Some would say that it was almost damned unwise to go running in the middle of the night down Hollywood Blvd.

Even more unwise for a golden haired girl with a golden haired dog.

Still, this runner didn't quite care. She liked the adrenaline, and the view.

Hollywood was so different from home. It was always surprising. Though she preferred the peaceful tranquility of the beach, she had to admit, she understood why Dylan and Alex made their homes (or hotel, in Dylan's case) here in Hollywood.

Spike ran easily beside her, tongue lolling out in a happy pink trail, looking up at her adoringly.

Slowing to a stop, Natalie took in a breath. The street was nearly deserted. Flashing police squad cars were parked around the Chinese Theatre, but the officers that were guarding the area seemed bored, distracted.

The reporters had left with the crowd to the mortuary, and already, this place seemed almost forgotten.

Tomorrow, rosaries, flowers and candles would likely lie where Annabeth fell.

For now, Natalie believed for the first time, she was truly dead.

Kneeling down, Natalie ruffled Spike's hair, kissing the top of his head distractedly, and glancing at the scene blocked off by the yellow tape.

"Allright baby," she whispered. "Be an angel and do your job." She nudged Spike to the tape. "No, doggie! Don't go in there!" Spike sank down on his haunches and smiled happily. Natalie smiled stiffly. She tried again. "Come on Doggie! Don't go in there and make me go in after you!" Spike gave her a lick on the ear.

Natalie sighed. "Well..." she said, under her breath, "Angels don't get made over night."

Pulling him into her body, she took a breath. "No, Spikey! NO!" With a quick glance at the officers, Natalie slid into a roll, ducking under the tape, and out of sight into the corner of the theatre.

Spike truly was a natural Angel.

He jumped out of her arms, yelping happily as he scuttled over the cement hand and feet prints of the stars.

Natalie glanced back at the squad cars. The police hadn't noticed her, yet.

The red carpet, previously basked in light, was now clothed in darkness.

Stepping up to it, Natalie knelt down. The blood was still there, wet and dark.

Paparazzi pictures exploded before her eyes. There was Annabeth. The way the blood seeped, it was easy to remember the position where she fell.

Natalie closed her eyes, hands tinting the blood. Sucking in her breath, she opened her eyes.

"There," she whispered.

Rising from her haunches, she stepped forward.

Here now, she could see it. There were the press of people. From here, Annabeth would be the star. She would smile, the cameras flashing from here, people shouting and screaming her name...

It would be chaos, and here, the gun would glint, and cameras would flash and...

Natalie looked down.

Pulling a fluorescent light from her fanny pack, she grinned. "Bingo."

There they were.

Pulling the recorder from her pack, she whispered, "Suspect wore black boots. Doc martins." Her eyes narrowed. "Trendy little murderer, aren't you?"

"What are you doing?"

A pair of black boots suddenly stepped into view. Natalie looked up, and up, and up.

There he was. An officer stared menacingly down at her.

"I uh... my dog!" She smiled widely. "There he is!" Standing up, she ran for her dog, scooping him up. Spike squirmed happily. Giggling, she shrugged helplessly. "Sorry! He just ran in here, and I had to grab him, and-"

The officer narrowed his eyes. "Get out of here."

Her eyes drifted down to the black boots. "Sure! No problem!"

He grunted, and walked away.

"Thanks!" Smile disappearing, Natalie moved quickly, heading toward the yellow tape when her footsteps faltered.

In the distance, a corner of an unnamed street, a fading street sign blinked once, and suddenly, he was there.

Billowing in a cloud of smoke, the light blinked once more, and he flashed into view again, the cigarette moving from his face in a graceful arc.

Natalie's breathed sucked in.

"The Thin Man?" she whispered.

The light flickered, and suddenly he was gone.

--

In a dark alley off of Hollywood, after Highland and before La Brea, was one of the newest HotSpots in Los Angeles.

Secluded, and almost unrecognizable, only those who knew which alley to turn in, which decrepit to pause at, found their way inside the doors.

It was for those with names. Celebrities who mattered. People who had money to burn.

Already, the crowd was forming.

Already, the beautiful people were coming in droves.

The killer blew in a drag of his cigarette, dropping it on the floor and rubbing it out with his foot.

With a sharp glint and a narrow smirk, he slid into the shadows.

Natalie was moving toward the alley when a vintage Mercedes sped through the street.

She paused, gathering her big puppy to her when the car suddenly swerved into a u-turn, sliding into the curb with a screech.

She smiled happily, giving the occupants a cheerful wave as she dumped the dog into the backseat.

Immediately, Spike yelped and slid into Dylan's lap.

Dressed in dark blue jeans and a tight black leather jacket, Dylan looked more herself.

"Well?" Natalie asked, slipping into the front seat.

"Not a professional, as far as we can see," Dylan said quickly.

"He used a luger," Alex elaborated, using the moments they were stopped to pull on the appropriate boots. "And he shot in the chest."

"A sniper would go for the head," Natalie nodded. "He was close to her, in the crowd." She once again looked back at the alley.

Alex gave her a glance. "What?"

"What would you say if I said I had seen a ghost?"

Dylan frowned. Pushing the puppy off her lap, she leaned toward the front seat. "I'd wonder what the hell you were on."

Alex bit her lip. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Where?" she asked.

Natalie motioned to the alley. "Just a hunch."

Dylan gave Alex a quick glance. "Let's go."

Raising the car hood, Natalie gave Spike a quick kiss before pushing him back into the car. "Just be a minute, sweetie."

Dylan's eyes were narrowed as she stepped into the darkened alley. With Natalie on her left, and Alex on her right, her only concentration needed to be on the front.

"A ghost?" she whispered.

"I... " Natalie trailed off.

Dylan sucked in her breath. Her hands clenched into fists. Alex's hand fell to her shoulder, a comforting squeeze.

"The Dancing Harlot."

"Excuse me?"

Dylan grinned, motioning with a palm to the crowd no more than fifty feet away, nestled around a small building. "The Dancing Harlot."

"Hollywood's latest exclusive slummy hotspot," Alex elaborated.

"Oh." From the corner of her eye, Dylan could see Natalie almost blush. "Sorry. I should have known that." She looked closer, and suddenly she froze. "There."

Shaking the bemused smile from her face, Dylan glanced to where Natalie was pointing.

Suddenly, everything inside of her slammed together hard, nearly choking her, forcing her to breathe heavily.

In her clenched fists, her manicured nails nearly drew blood, and her heart, beating previously in an easy, nice pattern, continued to rumble against her.

"What the..."

A dark, thin figure walked toward the crowd. He was trailing in smoke, lifting a cigarette into his mouth. In his right hand, he carried a cane, and he was handling it easily, nearly twirling it.

"Dylan..."

She heard the warning, the small note of almost fear in Alex's voice as she stood, stiff with shock.

"No," she whispered.

In the crowd, the smoke was still visible.

Natalie kept moving, and Alex, grabbing onto her hand, pulled her with them.

Forced into movement, she forced herself to start breathing again, but she no longer thought. Everything she did, everything she felt was now laced with what had to be pure instinct, because pure logic told her it couldn't be true.

He was dead. She saw him die.

A scream rose from the crowds, a painful yelp that was followed with, "He pulled my hair!"

Oh, God...

"Dylan!"

But it was too late. Instinct had taken over, and suddenly she was running, as far as she could to the crowd.

Already, he had broken away, moving with that sprinted gait that seemed to remind her of a gazelle.

She pounded hard and fast, weaving through the people, pushing them aside, flying over the pavement.

"Dylan!"

Natalie swung her arms, breathing to try to catch up, but the screams continued, and suddenly Alex had her, nearly barreling into a stop, when she yelled, "NAT!"

Natalie's head jerked back to the crowd.

People were yelling, someone was crying, and in the middle of it all, a man was lying in a pool of blood.

--

Dylan was almost there.

She was breathing hard now. He moved around the corner, and gritting her teeth, she dug into the pavement, and followed.

When she swerved the corner, she nearly barreled into the immobile form that stared impassively at her.

He reached out, caught her, as her arms went around his shoulders to steady herself.

And he was there. He smelled of smoke and musk. Hair gel plastered his hair down against his scalp. His features were drawn into a frown, eyes narrowed in a hawk like glare.

It was him.

Oh, God.

She couldn't move. Every limb was suddenly frozen in concrete. His eyes bore into hers, pinning her, and his finger tips, calloused and firm, moved over her face.

He continued to stare at her, hand now smoothing from her lips to her hair.

Fingers dug in, and breathlessly, she licked her lips, bracing herself for the inevitable pull.

"DYLAN!"

The voice broke the stillness, and he glanced behind her.

Jerked out of her spell, Dylan pulled back, hands pushing at his chest.

His fingers flew, and suddenly the medallion snapped from her neck.

Dylan's breath stuttered in a small gasp of pain.

He ran, quickly and effortlessly.

When Alex rounded the corner, Dylan was shivering.

Her face was pale, her mouth was open. She looked as if she had seen a ghost.

**End chapter two**


	3. Chapter Three: The Thin Man

**Chapter Three**

There were very few instances that Alex had seen Dylan scared. Dylan Sanders just didn't get scared. The life she had led produced a malleable personality that hardened with experience, bruised with love.

Alex knew that Dylan's addiction to danger was probably some psychological impulse that had morphed into habit. Unlike Alex, who's 'thrill seeker' factor had emerged out of a desperate search for a way to relieve the boredom that permeated her life, Dylan had grown to live and love danger because she had to. Still, the reasons never mattered. It was the first thing they found they had in common, and the discovery had rewarded her with one of her best friends.

The fact that Dylan's face was now pasty white with what had to be fear was extremely unsettling. She was alone in the dark alley, but her eyes were wide and her form was trembling.

"What's wrong?" It came out demanding and curt, but Alex was too worried, too rushed, too tired to care.

"Nothing." Dylan's head jerked back to the nothingness of the alley. She seemed to be struggling to breathe.

"Dylan-"

"I'm fine!" she insisted. "I'm fine." Another short breath, a stiff swallow, and Dylan stepped forward. "What is it?"

Alex didn't have time to pry. Her hand closed around Dylan's fingers, pulling her back in the direction they had come. "Sandy Chin got stabbed."

Dylan's eyes met hers in a startled gaze. Immediately, she moved with Alex, boots clicking down the dank cement.

"When did it happen?" she asked.

"Just after you ran off," Alex answered. She didn't need to look to know that Dylan wouldn't answer the unspoken question.

In the distance, some fifty feet away, 'The Dancing Harlot' had created a whole new order of chaos. The crowd that before had milled in an aura of sophistication was now tensely gathered, whispering throughout. On the red carpet that led Hollywood's finest in the new exclusive club, a figure that resembled the leading man of the hit dramedy Silverlake, lay mangled, dripping blood.

"Shit," was Dylan's pronouncement.

"Right there with you," Alex whispered back.

Police sirens pounded in the distance, the bright lights from the cars cast shadows across the dark walls. From the crowd emerged a blonde, expression taught with worry. With a shake of her head, Natalie kept her hands out to grab the elbows of each Angel, drawing them back.

"The police are coming," she said quickly. "Let's stay out of it.'

There was enough urgency in Natalie's tone not to ask questions.

Immediately, Alex broke away, the trio moving off like a triangle; one the way she came, the runner past the crowd, slowing down long enough to be curious at the morbid show before speeding off down the alley.

Alex's job was a little harder. Unable to follow Dylan, and not suitably dressed to blend in like Natalie, getting back to the car required her to go a full block out of her way.

Dylan and Natalie were already seated in the Mercedes when she pulled open the door. Casting a quick glance around her before settling in and pulling on her seatbelt, Alex's heartbeat finally began to slow down to a decent tempo.

"We're going to have to go back eventually." Dylan broke the silence. The rebel curled in the back seat with Spike, one hand buried in the dog's mane, the other at her throat, rubbing at her naked neck.

Alex's eyes narrowed.

"We don't need to," Natalie said. Blue eyes stormy with focus, she unlocked Alex's glove compartment, pulling out a scrunchy. "You guys know who he is."

Dylan was quiet, but Alex caught on immediately. "The victim was stabbed."

"The assassin shot with a luger," Dylan said. Through the rear view mirror, Alex tried to catch her expression, but Dylan was looking out the window, face hidden by her curls.

"And at the exact same moment Sandy Chin was stabbed, someone had a problem with hair," Natalie said pointedly.

Alex sucked in her breath. Even with Natalie's talk of ghosts, even with Dylan's uncharacteristic actions only minutes before, she still had trouble believing it.

"It's the Thin Man," she breathed. "I thought he was dead! We saw him fall off that roof!"

Natalie nodded. "Well, if falling from a bridge, getting shot off a mansion, and crashing into a cement underpass won't do it, a little six story plunge should be a piece of cake."

"Dylan," Alex said. Her neck craned to view the redhead. "What happened to his medallion?"

"What medallion?" Natalie asked.

"His medallion, the one she was wearing around her neck," Alex said crisply.

Natalie's mouth dropped open, and Alex knew that if Dylan had ever thought about killing her, it was now. Dylan hadn't mentioned why she wore the medallion for a reason, and Alex would have never asked, but the Thin Man was after Jason.

To hell with privacy or tact.

But Dylan didn't look angry. Impossibly large eyes moved from Natalie to Alex. She pulled Spike closer and sighed, eyes drifting closed as she breathed the dog's scent in.

"It was him," she admitted, words almost buried by Spike's fur. The puppy, as if sensing her turmoil, gave her a tentative lick. "I ran after him, and he was in that alley. He took the medallion, but that's all."

"He didn't say anything?" Natalie's question was impulsive, and when both Dylan and Alex threw her an incredulous look, she immediately blushed. "Nevermind."

"The saber, the gun, the witness-"

"The shoes," Natalie offered.

"That's it then." Slapping at the steering wheel, Alex made a turn that might have been a bit too rough. "It's the Thin Man we're after."

Dylan looked troubled. "That's too easy."

At that, even Natalie turned, almost as if staring at Dylan could make her understand what she had just said. "I don't think we're looking to make it hard."

"Dylan, why would he not be?" Alex asked.

Dylan struggled to think of something. Her mouth pursed, and finally, she slumped against the seat.

"It's the Thin Man," she said finally, almost as she were defeated.

In the awkward silence that followed, Alex felt the foreign feeling of edginess.

It wasn't the first time Dylan had cut herself off from the group, but even now, Dylan's admission had seemed doubtful.

The Thin Man and his kiss and hair pulling had changed things. Him and damned Seamus and every other bad guy Dylan could never quite stay away from.

"Why does no one stay dead anymore?" she whispered angrily.

--

He shouldn't have survived that fall.

Seamus had stabbed him with his own sword.

That should have killed him. He should have been dead to her right then and there.

After all, what the hell was he? A morally ambiguous mute orphan who had switched sides for no apparent reason, kissed her for who knew the hell what-

It wasn't like they could have dated. It wasn't like she could have brought him over to Natalie's for Scrabble Night.

Just the image of the Thin Man standing around the barbeque while Jason talked about the hazards of make-up and Pete burned another burger was enough to make her smile.

It faded just as quickly.

He was dead to her.

And yet, here he was again, with a sting in her neck and a litter of dead celebrities in his wake.

Alex pulled into the Chateau's private driveway, waving off the valets.

"Chances are he's working for someone," Dylan said.

"Our best bet is to start cross checking the victim's personal lives, see if they intersect," Natalie agreed.

Well, if she had to face hers, Alex was going to have to take her share.

Passing a glance at Alex, Dylan said, "And since we don't know where he is or who he works for, we should probably look into protecting Jason."

Alex shot her a glance. Arching an eyebrow, Dylan waited. As if asking for support, Alex looked to Natalie, but the blonde shrugged apologetically.

"Yeah," she said. "We don't know if this is personal, yet."

Alex was beaten by logic and she knew it.

"Fine."

Dylan almost grinned.

"Get out," Alex snapped, but there was no bite in the tone, and when Dylan wrapped her arms around both girls to give them an awkwardly positioned hug, Alex held on to the arm around her throat and brushed her lips against the sleeve lightly.

Natalie's kiss to Dylan was a playful smack against her cheek.

"We'll go full throttle tomorrow," she said. "Even Creepy Thin Men have to sleep sometime."

"I don't know," Alex remarked, "There's a reason they're creepy."

But all Dylan managed was a tight smile at the joke. Slamming the door a little harder than necessary, she shrugged.

"I'll see you later."

--

It was a joke she should have found funny.

But it wasn't.

Dylan didn't know what made her more angry: the fact that her friends made it or the idea that she could actually be bothered to care for a guy who she never really knew.

It was stupid.

Pushing open the door with a hard shove directed by her shoulder, Dylan entered the bungalow.

The place was cluttered, messy with her things strewn around. Natalie's coat was hanging over one of the plush chairs. Alex's boots, given to her when she returned, were tossed in a corner next to the closet.

Dylan smiled. Alex would have a heart attack had she ever seen her boots treated so carelessly.

She crossed the room, picking up the boots and throwing them into the closet, right next to the pile of the hundred or so other shoes she kept around because she had to.

The closet was over stuffed with Angels clothes.

Even the dresser seemed to be bursting at the seams.

Dylan frowned. Rubbing at her neck, at the small welt that had been left when the necklace had been snapped from her, she hissed.

"Well," she whispered. "At least I should be glad he didn't steal another lock of hair. At this rate I'll go bald."

Fingers shifted to the familiar spot. She never had to try to remember the sting that came with the hairs being yanked.

Her face in the dresser, with the hair still curled in her reporter's ringlets and carefully made-up, looked beautifully distant.

She was almost Alex, here.

Eyes drifted down to the dresser, and almost out of their own accord, she found her fingers tipping over a jewelry box made of shells and cast in sand stone.

Nestled inside, tangled in rings and earrings, was a short black lock of hair tied together by a string.

It was just hair.

It belonged to a killer. Just like, it seemed, every other man in Dylan's life, with exception to poor Chad.

She sighed. And even Chad looked the picture of mentally mature compared to what she was thinking.

"Fuck it," she said.

If he was going to do this to her, she was damned well going to understand why.

Stuffing the lock of hair into her pocket, Dylan turned, grabbing her keys, and heading for the door.

--

Jason was so dense sometimes.

Alex had repeatedly told him that, as a celebrity, he needed to be careful with himself.

Anyone could find the spare key he kept inside his potted plant. It was like he had taken every movie cliché from every movie he had been in and decided to use them as a manual for living.

Opening the door and moving inside, Alex found her ex-boyfriend in the living room.

When she did, she nearly laughed with exasperation.

Jason was in the living room, the thousand dollar stereo blasting 'YMCA', his hips shifting merrily as he blasted out the song.

Oh, God. If his fans could see him now.

When he made another shimmy, shifted into a turn, and caught her leaning placidly in the doorway, he gave a rather unmanly yelp, tripped on his microphone wire, and careened into the sofa, tipping it backwards and landing in a pile on the other side.

"Jason!"

Jason Gibbons was still trying to gain control of his heart thwacking against his chest when soft hands lifted his head and placed them on a soft pillow of thighs. Eyes blinked open, and Jason inhaled, suddenly surrounded by what appeared to be two perfectly shaped breasts brushing the tip of his nose.

"Alex?" he whispered dreamily.

"Jason!"

"Alex?!" Eyes shooting open widely, Jason blinked, suddenly struggling up. "What are you doing here?!"

"Are you okay?" she asked, ignoring the question completely.

"I'm fine!" Rubbing his head and moving to the stereo, he shut it off with a click. "What are you doing here?"

Alex, as usual, looked absolutely beautiful and put together. Her hands rested on her thighs, looking up at him with almond eyes that always seemed to be somewhere else.

Never on him.

With a nervous sigh, Alex smiled. "Look, with your costar dying on the redcarpet-"

He winced.

"I'm sorry about Annabeth, Jason."

"Well, thank you, but... you know, you could have called." Jason stuck out his chest, tittering slightly. "I mean, just because someone very close to me died doesn't mean you can come around expecting me to want sympathy sex from you! I have my limits, Alex, and-"

"Jason-"

"Well, maybe if you wanted to just go one round, I could probably-"

"Jason-"

"I do need the comfort and-"

"Jason!" Alex was suddenly in front of him, palm slapped over his mouth to keep him from talking. "I'm not here to give you sympathy sex, you... dork."

"You're not?"

"No!" At the harsh tone, Alex blanched. With a step back, she attempted to calm herself, before managing a stiff smile and shrugging. "I'm here to take care of you for the night. The Angels are going to take shifts until we can be sure that whoever killed Annabeth and Sandy Chin isn't after you."

"You think they're after me?" Jason's voice nearly squeaked, but to his credit, he got over the fear enough to glare self righteously. "It doesn't matter. Alex, look, I can take care of myself."

"Jason-"

"I can! I'm an action start, dammit!"

He crossed his arms. He wasn't budging on this. A man's pride was stake. It was a precious thing.

Alex considered.

"Fine, okay, maybe you can, but if would make ME feel better if you would let me stay."

"Alex-"

"And if you don't I'll tie you up and leave you in the bathroom. And this time," she added when his eyes widened, "I won't remember the safety word."

The actor gulped, and it was such a cute sight that Alex would have smiled had she not been so deadly serious.

--

"You're quieter than usual."

Natalie often wondered where on earth Pete had been hiding the first twenty-eight years of her life.

Tugging on a bone with Spike attached at the mouth on the other side, he looked absolutely beautiful, grinning up at her with his head cocked, very nearly mimicking Spike.

Natalie shrugged, placing the chai tea latte on the counter, and hopping off.

"It's been an interesting night at work," she remarked, settling on the floor next to him, rubbing at Spike's haunches.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

Natalie considered. Pete looked ready to listen, but she honestly wondered how much of it all he would want to know.

"Well... the Thin Man's alive," she admitted finally. "And Dylan's acting tremendously weird, and Alex is really freaked out over Jason but doesn't want to admit it, and nobody stays dead anymore-"

"Nat?" Pete opened his arms, and Natalie settled in them gratefully.

Breathing in his cologne, and rubbing her fingertips gently on his forearm, she continued. "And if nobody stays dead, does that suddenly mean that we're going to have Seamus O'Grady coming over and trying to kill Dylan all over again, and Eric Knox, and if that happens, will Dylan run off trying to save us again-"

"Dylan does have an interesting choice in men," Pete agreed.

"She kissed the Thin Man," Natalie whispered.

"The Thin Man?"

With a distracted nod, she sighed. "Alex told me. And she doesn't understand it, and neither do I, really. Why him? He's a killer! He's proved it again! What about Dylan makes her want to do this?"

From beneath her, Natalie felt the shift of a warm body, and push and pull of muscles, as Pete curled his arm further around her body, pulling her in with a palm flat against her stomach.

"Well," he said finally, "More than likely the same thing that made Alex break up with Jason when she's clearly still in love with him."

Natalie smiled grimly. Craning her next to glance at her boyfriend, she couldn't help but wonder in a half serious joke, "So are we the only two people in this entire world involved in a happy, stable, somewhat normal relationship?"

"Well, I don't know about that," he chuckled. "I can be dangerous. Tonight? I mixed Red Bull and Vodka with Rum!"

She couldn't help but burst into laughter.

He shrugged. "Granted it was a mistake, but... I'm a man on the edge!"

"Yeah, you're a real thrill seeker."

"Only from seeing you, Nat."

She was lucky. Very, very, very lucky.

Pulling him in closer, Natalie's eyes closed.

She blocked out Alex, and she blocked out the Dylan, and everything that was careening out of control on this case in favor of Pete's welcoming kiss.

Just for a minute.

--

Marlin had the same reaction to famous bodies that he did to regular bodies.

Didn't matter if they were extraordinary when they were alive. Dead bodies were dead bodies no matter how dead they were.

Pulling out the body, he shivered in the cold.

Lifeless coal black eyes stared up at him. Sandy Chin had been extraordinary in real life. Marlin would even say he had been a fan. That show of his, Silverlake, critically acclaimed, and he had been given book deals and movie deals, and that new movie of his, that looked pretty good.

But here, he was just... ordinary.

"The Examiner will be up in the morning," said the voice behind him.

Marlin looked. Mary Briggs looked tense and bored. Her eyes had bags under them, but she was trying to combat the sleep by drinking what appeared to be a gallon of coffee.

Definitely smart, but not extraordinary.

"I can tell you right now it's a stab wound."

"Marlin, when I need your help I'll ask for it," she snapped. Coming forward, she stared down at the body. "Damn. Same killer."

"Can't say fer sure. Usually serial killers tend to use the same method of killing."

"I know, Marlin, I am a police officer, remember?" she snapped.

"Right." Desperately ordinary, Marlin swallowed and nodded. "Same region, though," he couldn't resist saying.

Mary pursed her lips. With a sigh, and a growl, she tossed the last of the coffee down her throat and slammed the cup in the garbage bin.

"Go home to your cat, Marlin," she said stiffly. "Being around this many stiffs isn't healthy."

Marlin stood in the same place long after the clickety-click of her heels had disappeared.

Didn't matter if it wasn't healthy.

Everybody in here was ordinary. Just like him.

Sliding fingers over eyelids, Marlin watched the skin cover the orbs, and gently placed the blanket of Sandy Chin's head.

From this angle, he looked just like another dead body.

"In the fridge you go," Marlin said, and shoved hard.

--

Jason's widescreen purchase may have screamed 'Boys and their Toys', but that didn't mean the thing wasn't useful.

Sandals kicked off, feet curled on the couch, and tanktop falling off of one shoulder, Alex looked the picture of relaxation, idly pushing buttons on the remote and pausing once in a while to pop a kernel into her mouth.

"Your dad's not wondering where you are?"

"He went home," she said automatically. She didn't look at Jason. Her eyes were glued to the screen. "Meeting my mom in London to go to a stock holder's meeting there." She pushed another button the remote, and watched the screen jerkily move back.

"Can you please turn that off?"

Alex could understand why Jason wouldn't want to see this. The shooting was gruesome. The paparazzi had caught it in full glory. The way she fell, Jason's arms around her, blood everywhere.

But no one had caught the killer.

Why?

"I can't," she said. "I'm sorry."

His stare burned into the side of her face, but when he pushed off the sofa and slammed the door to his bedroom, she didn't react. Her heart betrayed her, aching just enough for her to drop the remote. Alex took a moment, just a precious minute, to rub at her eyes.

With a steeling breath in, she picked up the remote and once again watched the shooting.

Suddenly, her eyes narrowed, and she fumbled with the buttons.

The pause was grainy, but it was impossible not to distinguish his features from those buried around him in the crowd. She'd know him anywhere, standing there, eyes narrowed, mouth sucking on a cancer stick like it was better than sex.

The pit in her stomach seemed to sink that much lower.

"The Thin Man," she whispered.

--

"Stupid Thin Men and their stupid mute faces with their stupid hair fetishes."

She had absolutely no idea why she was doing this. It was stupid, and he was a killer, and she knew it.

But she was back in the alley with a lock of his hair in her pocket, and a sting in her heart, and she had no idea why.

Maybe it was to kill him. That seemed as good of a reason as any. Completely kick his ass for being a morally ambiguous asswipe orphan who got himself stabbed for the trouble of trying to save her from her vengeful ex-boyfriend.

"You know," she said out loud. "You really should learn to stay dead." Her boots were loud on the cement, acoustics of the dank alley surprisingly clear, despite the smell and the whisper of the rats scuttling around trashbins. Her boots came down on something squishy, and Dylan, wrinkling her nose, decided not to look down. She really didn't want to know what it was.

"I'm just damned tired of playing games, here," she said, louder this time. "So you get your ass out here and let me kick your ass for being a murderous son-of-a-bitch hella-good kisser, or I'm going to fucking find you tonight, and kill you."

It wasn't that she really expected that to work, but her nerves were already on edge, and her heart was already pounding.

When a dark figure emerged from the other side, she caught her breath.

Her palms curled into fists, but her mouth was open, lips quivering in broken shudders, and her heart, good god, her heart, was pounding so loud.

In this alley was either absolution or pure hell, and the figure, wafting in smoke, hidden in darkness, was somehow the representation.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't escape her past.

"Why, Helen," he said, throwing the butt on the ground and grinning widely. "Didn't think ya had it in, ya. How'd you know it was me?"

She didn't. She took a full step back, and then was somehow frozen in this time, this place. This wasn't what she was after, but she sought a man on the rooftop and she had gotten a man from the rooftop.

One survived, and apparently so did the other.

Standing now only ten feet away and coming closer every second, was Seamus O'Grady.

**end chapter**


	4. Chapter Four: Born To Be Wild

**Chapter Four**

Alex had always commented that it was absolutely amazing how Natalie never seemed to have trouble falling asleep. Of course, what Alex never realized was that Natalie didn't sleep.

Natalie dreamed.

Natalie had always been about fantasy; finding the magical in the real and learning to reach for it. Reach for the stars, to be an Angel.

Tonight, her dreams were filled with dogs. Big fluffy dogs, and cute little short-haired dogs. Dogs that barked, and ones that yipped. Canines surrounded her and Natalie, swimming in puppies, never stopped to ponder that this was just a bit too many puppies to be entirely realistic. Dogs normally didn't join her for a rousing round of 'You're the One That I Want'.

It was her dreamworld and in her dreamworld, anything was possible.

A particularly persistent St. Bernard was licking her ear playfully, while a Chihuahua yipped in her ear.

Oddly, the yip sounded more like a telephone ring than an actual yip.

It was odd, very odd.

"Natalie?"

Natalie hugged the dogs closer, blinking as she searched the meadow. "Pete?"

"Natalie!"

A rough shake of her shoulder brought reality back with a whoosh.

The dog was still ringing.

"Pete?"

From the darkness, the handsome face of her significant other loomed into view. Natalie blinked.

"The phone, Natalie. Your cellphone."

"The dog is a phone?"

Pete's look was obviously befuddled. Thankfully, Natalie regained her senses quickly enough, and with an apologetic smile to her beloved, picked up the phone and swung her long legs over the side of the bed.

She glanced at the clock. Two o'clock.

"Hello?"

"It's Bosley, girl. You better get your ass in here. We got trouble."

Natalie said nothing. Rubbing at a small sore spot on her neck, she thumped bare feet on the floor, and pushed off the bed.

"Be right in," she said softly. Closing the cellphone with a click, she arched her body, taking in the silhouettes of both man and dog as they waited for the news. When Pete frowned, she gave a small smile, shoulders arching in resigned determination.

"Charlie?" he said huskily.

"Who else?" she answered.

Placing the phone back on the dresser, Natalie reached for her pants.

--

The phone was neatly plucked from the counter.

Alex slid it into place on her belt with a click. Jason's house was silent. The lack of sound from Jason's closed bedroom door indicated he wasn't asleep. Alex knew by experience, when Jason slept soundly, he snored. Loudly.

Her boots clicked loudly on the linoleum, and this place, all of it, seemed cold.

It was an odd realization, that came accompanied with a curious crack in her chest. Her gaze drifted over plates and cups that remained in order, largely unused, because Jason never cooked.

The only time they were ever brought out were those times she did it for him.

The kitchen was impersonal, with every touch of her eradicated.

Her hand rested on her phone, a nagging reminder, and with a quick breath in, Alex turned, reaching for her leather jacket hanging neatly on the back of a chair.

In two steps she was at the door. The note was taped on the door, and the spare key slipped into her cleavage.

Without another look to Jason's closed door, Alex stepped out of the house, and into the crisp air.

--

The phone kept ringing.

The tune Dylan had chosen when she had first received her Cingular phone was 'Born to be Wild'. A little hoaky, a little too much attitude, sure, but it personified her, and it never failed to make her smile when she heard the tinny sound coming from her hip.

Tonight, she didn't dare even take a second to look at the vibrating cellphone.

Every nerve, from shaking fingertips to twitching heartbeats told her to run. There was a child stuck in her that shrieked from fear. It was she who enveloped her heart, and closed her lungs until it was nearly impossible to breathe.

It was the child who had seen the man she adored become a murderer.

It was the woman who stood now, to find the man she let fall still standing firmly on her ground.

Her lips twitched. Sweat trickled down her face, but she made no motion to remove the uncomfortable liquid. Her eyes, frozen from either shock, fear, paranoia or a little of all three, continued to bore into the form, but he was neither a ghost nor an apparition.

He was simply Seamus O'Grady.

Her ex-boyfriend, the one who had shown her all his secrets and made her scream while he discovered hers, had never approved of her smoking.

It was almost ironic, really, the fights they had over her smoking.

"They'll kill ya, Helen, they will," he'd drawl, plucking them from her fingertips and tossing them out of the window. "And ya smell bad, too."

She had quit, back then, because of him.

But she still relished the smell, still sometimes itched for the tranquility that came with taking the little white stick and sucking in.

His fingers were now wrapped around a Marlboro, her old brand. His eyes were closed, and he inhaled deeply, the crisp burning end flaring bright red, white paper turning black, and ashes falling in a graceful arc to the ground.

He smiled, pulling the cigarette from his mouth and studying it.

"Ya know, I always hated these. Never knew what ya saw in them, Helen." He shrugged. "But I figured if your bitch girlfriend can't kill ya, then nothin' can."

"I'm not your girlfriend." It was a stupid statement. It meant nothing, and it wasn't anything they didn't already both know. But it was defiant, edged in hate, and anger. It was words coming out of her mouth, and it was enough to break her free of the ice that had been holding her.

Arms relaxed slightly, hands clenched into fists, but Dylan said nothing more.

Seamus snorted. Lips pulled up into an almost sneer, and for a moment, he seemed a parody of the awkward boy with the braces and the over-excited giggle.

"Betcha didn't know this would happen, would it? You and your friends, walkin' about every night, savin' the world. How's the ribs, Helen? Hurt ya just a wee bit?"

She stiffened slightly. It took effort not to bring a surprised palm to the bandage around her torso, covered by her shirt, where he couldn't see.

Not unless he had been watching her for a while.

But of course, he was watching her.

Seamus was obsessive and compulsive, but when he gave his attention, it was fullblown.

"Never felt better," she lied easily. Her heart was hammering loudly against her chest, almost drowning out any other sound, but she gave no indication.

She never moved.

Seamus took in the tense posture, and smiled.

"Such an easy to read bitch ya are, Dylan. Ah knew you'd be down here alone. I knew it when I saw ya tonight. You're so damned loyal, you think, but the second you think ya don't understand you leave everyone behind."

"You don't know me," she whispered. The words seemed to give her strength somehow, and she found her voice. "You don't KNOW me, Seamus."

The almost shout just seemed to amuse him. "Where are you friends, then?" He motioned to the cellphone, now still and silent. "They don't even know where you are, Helen. But I do. I've always known."

He stepped forward, and quickly, quietly, Dylan put a foot back, weighing her balance on the balls of her feet. Shit. Shit. Shit-

"They're not gonna be there for ya this time, Helen. I'm gonna make sure of that. You'll be alone, diggin' your grave, same way you left me." He paused, shoulders shrugging as he craned his neck. Bones cracked, loud vertebra snapping as he adjusted himself. "I'm not going to just kill ya, Helen. I'm going to take you, and your little friends, and I'm gonna destroy you and everything you love. I know what ya are. I know what ya do."

"You touch them, I'll kill you," she whispered, blood now boiling beyond any reason, any fear. "And this time, I'll make sure you're dead."

"Hmm." He snorted slightly. "Ya think ya hate me, Helen, but ya don't. You won't know the meaning of the word until you've been betrayed by everything you love and end up alone. Then you'll hate me." Cocking his head, he studied her. "Pity you won't be able to savor that."

From the shadows, like ghosts of judgment, men dropped from balconies, emerged from doorways, and from behind her, another stepped off a motorcycle. Faceless, nameless men, they could have all been Seamus, and it would be less intimidating.

"We just wanted to give ya something to remember us by," Seamus said. Dylan's finger twitched. One, two - four - six ... eight.

Eight.

A bat swung out of nowhere, and pure instinct saved her as she rolled into a ball, shifting up to swing her legs hard under another, sending him crashing into the ground.

On her hip, the phone began to vibrate and pulse.

Born to be Wild sang gaily, even as she felt the force of a fist crash into her cheek.

--

The aura was tense all around.

Natalie shifted uncomfortably. The Townsend Agency, normally bursting with sunshine and good morning cheer was dark with shadows, and silent.

Alex, who usually sat down on the other side of Dylan, was now standing, arms crossed, one palm at her mouth. It was the only sign of nervous anxiety Alex had ever displayed, her habit of chewing absently on her thumbnail.

"Alex," Natalie whispered.

The other Angel caught her glance, and when Natalie waved a manicured palm, she blanched, bringing her fingers out of mouth, across her chest, before continuing her pace.

The screen held a stern lady, so immobile it could have been a photo. The speakerphone, usually so animated and alive, now just appeared to be a speakerphone.

Bosley, his rump on the desk, had his ear to the phone, lips pursed in a thin line.

"She's not picking up," he said finally, pulling the receiver away and slamming it in the cradle.

"Alex, Natalie, are you sure you don't know where she is?" Charlie asked.

"No," Alex said immediately.

"I'm sorry, Charlie," Natalie responded. Alex settled in beside her, and immediately, Natalie's fingers wrapped in hers. "We dropped her off at the hotel and it was the last we heard of her."

"Maybe she's just asleep," Alex said hopefully. "You know Dylan. In Cancun, she slept through the hurricane."

"And I'm sure she's having wonderful dreams," Mary snapped, interrupting as she glared menacingly from the screen. "But I've got two dead celebrities and I'm paying a good amount of money to an agency who was supposed to assure me that that didn't happen again!"

"Ms. Briggs, I understand your frustration," Charlie said, never changing his tone, "But these things to take time."

"Chess takes time, Charles," Mary snapped, "Body counts don't."

"We have a suspect," Natalie said immediately, casting a glance at Alex. "All we really need to do now is locate him and who he works for."

"Well, that's very nice, Miss America. Might I suggest you and the reigning Geisha over there find Angela Bowie and bring him down before I find Julia Roberts in my morgue?"

Alex blinked, Natalie's mouth dropped open, and Bosley snorted.

"Now, just wait a minute-"

"Mary, I won't tolerate that kind of talk," Charlie said firmly.

Mary sighed. Fingers rubbing the bridge of her nose, she finally looked up, shoulders slumping as she reached for another cup of coffee. "I'm sorry, ladies. Truly, I am. You don't understand the pressure that's coming from the department."

Natalie looked up, and in an effort to do something, ran her hands through her hair. "We'll find him, Ms. Briggs."

"You better. Look, I hate to say this, but, the captain's made it clear. If another celebrity gets shot or killed, he's going to let it out that the Townsend Agency is put on the job and let you take the heat."

"Mary, that's not how we do business."

"It's not how I do business either, Charlie," she maintained, "But the Captain's given me orders. Get to work."

The screen darkened to black.

Alex gave a huff, crossing her legs and arms at the same time in one vicious jerk. "Talk about having severe emotional issues! And I thought I was distant!"

"Charlie, can she really do that?" Bosley asked. "Put all that blame on us?"

"We're not even going to entertain the option," he answered. The tone was easy, friendly. "Because we're going to find this suspect before another celebrity dies, right Angels?"

"Of course, Charlie," Natalie said.

"Sure, Charlie," Alex said.

Dylan's chime was noticeably absent.

"But first I think we should find Dylan," Natalie said.

"I agree," Charlie responded. "Bosley, can you try again?"

"One white girl, coming right up," Bosley answered, grabbing the phone and dialing.

--

The solid metal screeched as her forehead slammed into it.

Dylan cried out in pain, a frustrated yell. Another fist came, fast and hard, and with a mind splintered by pain, she just managed to shift, seconds before the hand crashed into the trashbin, barely missing her.

Sucking in her breath, Dylan rolled back, jerking with her waist to land on her feet.

The bruised ribs flared in complaint, and she stumbled, wincing while she blocked another blow with a forearm, hand closing around the wrist to snap it before a step backwards sent her careening into thug number seven.

The vibration on her waist was an unwelcome distraction. 'Born to be Wild' was shrill and inconsistent.

Her ribs. Her God-damned ribs.

Fuck.

Gritting her teeth, Dylan planted her feet and shot up, fingers just closing around the lower rung of a balcony ladder.

And her ribs screamed.

She twisted, legs closing around another's neck, and with a snap, she jerked him unconscious, milliseconds before she fell flat on her back as another slammed a crow bar in her thigh.

Her head cracked against the pavement, and already, her mouth was tasting blood, but Dylan swung her feet in an arc, and stumbled to her feet.

'Born to Be Wild' continued to play.

Large, burly arms captured her around the waist, but she bit and stomped, and suddenly the hands sprung free, giving her enough space to twist and turn in a roundhouse, slamming his face into the dank ground.

A foot lodged into her back, sending her flying forward.

Four down, four to go, and Seamus kept coming.

The others were easy. On a regular day, even with a bruised rib, Dylan could have taken them with no question and just a little bit of fun.

But Seamus was different.

Seamus blocked her kick and sent another in its place so fast she got clipped in the chin.

Seamus came relentlessly, and mercilessly, with the glint in his eyes that he had when they had made love, or fucked, or whatever the hell it was they had done eight years ago.

"Give it up, Helen," he drawled. "I always knew where to touch ya!"

She grit her teeth, and suddenly she had pushed off from the wall and buried a heel in not one, but two of the men, crushing voice boxes, and larynxes.

And then she felt it, the crash against her ribs, the explosion of pain that became so blinding she couldn't move in time for the boot that careened into her face.

Another came, this time on her mouth.

Dylan was on her knees.

Fingers tangled in her auburn mane, head jerked up and she was swallowed by him, filled with Seamus, and drowning in his world.

"Like I said, I always knew where to touch ya, Helen."

His lips came down on hers, hard and cruel, and she could do nothing to stop it, not when he bit her, savagely, not when his fist came down, and she landed face first in a puddle on the cement.

'Born to Be Wild' played on.

She couldn't move, not even when Seamus carefully unclipped the phone from her belt, and in her ever darkening vision, crushed it against the wall.

--

Inside the emptiness of the bungalow currently occupied by Dylan Sanders, a dog whined outside the door.

Tiny rasps of nails against wood forced the door to rattle, but it didn't budge.

Slowly, it creaked open, and a golden ball of fuzz shimmied in the creak, yelping happily as it careened around the bed and made for Dylan's pile of laundry.

Natalie entered, opening the door wider for Alex to come in.

"She's not here," she said, looking back to glance at her friend.

"She would have told us where she went," Alex ground crisply. One dainty foot stepped over the pile of forgotten magazines on the floor, in the direction of the dresser.

"She didn't before," Natalie reminded her. Sinking down on the bed, Natalie reached for the Cosmo with Annabeth Torres on it. The smiling brunette was dead now. It was surreal. Tracing her face with a nail, Natalie glanced up. "She wouldn't, not again-"

"She had no reason," Alex said. "She wouldn't. Not now."

"You're right. It's crazy. Maybe she just went for a drink-"

"She would have taken her phone."

Natalie closed her eyes, blowing out her breath, and sucking it back in. "Well, she could have turned it off."

"She never turns off her phone."

"Well, Alex, what you want me to say?" Natalie snapped, exasperated, and tired and worried, and where the hell was DYLAN?! "I mean, she's gone, and I don't know why, and she's gone missing before-"

"Natalie!" In a second, Alex was there, arms wrapping around her friend, and pulling her in closer. "Relax, okay?"

"I can't-"

"Sure, you can." With a smile, Alex caressed her face gently, smiling into the crystal blue eyes. "Dylan's a fighter, remember? She wouldn't abandon us. Look! Her bracelet's here, and all her clothes is here, and there's a coke can condensing and creating an irreparable ring on that antique wood desk over there." Natalie snorted with a half smile. "She's not going anywhere. She'll be back."

Natalie sucked in her breath. "She will be back," she decided. "And because of that, I probably shouldn't let Spike chew on her last AC/DC - SPIKE!" Scrambling up, Natalie began to play an impromptu tug-of-war with her dog, pulling at Dylan's sacred black shirt.

Alex stood, hands on her waist, searching for the details.

Her eyes fell on the dresser. The contents of Dylan's shell jewelry box were mangled and spilled over.

"She took something," she whispered.

"What?" Natalie asked.

Alex swallowed. She was jumping to conclusions. Dylan was probably out with some guy, doing what Dylan did best, love them and leave them.

"Nothing," she said, smiling tightly. "Come on, let's get some sleep. Dylan will be back in the morning, and we still have a Thin Man to find."

"Unless Dylan found him first," Natalie tossed.

"What?"

"Nothing," Natalie shrugged. "Let's go."

"She wouldn't-"

"I don't know."

The two women stared, contemplating each the others ideas, sorting them, tossing out theories, and bringing in new ones.

"I don't know," Natalie said again.

"Me neither."

With a nod, Natalie blew her breath out. "Let's get some sleep. She'll be back tomorrow."

"Right," Alex responded. "She has to be."

She moved to the door, and when her fingers slipped on the doorknob, she never told Natalie it was because her hand was shaking.

--

The alley was silent, pitch black.

It was almost impossible to distinguish darkness from darkness here, and as it was, she might have lain there all night.

The figure, dressed in all black, had her pale face obscured by reddish hair, tangled in wet tendrils that were almost black with dirt.

It was the strands and their smell that had alerted him.

With a rough push, he had her on her back.

Her lip was torn, blood clotted. Eyes were fluttering with life, but she couldn't move, struggled even as her head fell back to the cement.

He knelt on his haunches, peering down at her.

When her eyes opened, hazel or green or brown, he could never decide, her mouth opened with a painful rasp in.

"You," she whispered.

Eyes drifted to the hair, matted and dirty, but still hers, and he tangled fingers in it, tugging.

He was rewarded with a hiss of pain, but nothing more than that.

His hand moved to her chest, and he pushed lightly.

She gasped, eyes fluttering.

Eyes narrowing, he placed the cane down beside him, and with a wiry strength that was deceptive coming from such a lithe body, he lifted her, easily.

"No," she whispered, and her palms began to try to push at his chest.

He let her struggle with her fading strength. She was beaten. It would not be long.

It wasn't.

With a defeated cry, she collapsed against him, a sobbing hiss against his throat.

Carefully, almost gently, if he was indeed capable, he closed his eyes, and inhaled, mouth brushed against her wet strands, over the porcelain of her skin. His arms tightened around her, and in the dark, dirty street, no one saw as the Thin Man carried Dylan deeper into the night.

**end chapter**


	5. Chapter Five: Downtown

**Chapter Five **

"Did she call?"

The no-nonsense Alex gave no greeting when Natalie picked up the phone. There was nothing but flat urgency, and Alex, twirling the telephone cord around her finger, hidden in Jason's bathroom, knew Natalie didn't care.

"No," Natalie responded, voice tinny and full of static. "Hang on, I'm right outside his house."

Jason's loud snoring vibrated on the floor panels while Alex walked over on bare feet. When she opened the door for Natalie, the blonde gave her a surprised glance, gaze lingering from head to toe.

"You look... casual," Natalie managed finally, a smile emerging in spite of herself.

Flushing slightly, Alex pushed the cut off sweatshirt back up her bare shoulders. It immediately slid down again. Considering she was wearing nothing but the over-sized shirt, she did indeed look like a sorority pin up girl.

"It's Jason's," she explained, letting her friend in. "I didn't have a chance to bring anything with me, and apparently, he gave all the clothes I left here to Goodwill."

Natalie's eyes grew wide, palm to her mouth in a horrified gesture. "Not the cute little mini skirt with the lace down the front?"

With a wince, Alex nodded.

"Oh my GOD! I'm sorry!" Natalie's palm sank down. "Did you kill him?"

"I thought about it," Alex replied, "But there were enough celebrities biting it today."

The bad joke brought them both back to earth, and Natalie, fingers skimming through her long blonde hair, sunk down on the couch.

"I stopped by the bungalow, she's still not there."

Alex, remaining standing, began to pace back and forth, fingers to her mouth. "We have to find her," Alex said.

"Alex?" Natalie pointed to her lips, and shook her head. Immediately, Alex's hands came down.

"Thanks," she said breathlessly, settling down next to Natalie.

"No problem," she responded easily. "On Dylan-"

"I don't know. She didn't leave us really many clues, and she should have called by now-"

"-Unless something happened to her."

"-or she didn't want to be found."

"Neither of which is exactly a wonderful option," Natalie sighed. Head floating back to rest on the back of the couch, she was still a minute.

"We should tell Charlie," Alex mused.

Natalie's head came up. "I don't know, Alex..." Legs uncrossing, Natalie fidgeted.

"You don't think we should tell Charlie?"

"What if Dylan comes back by then?"

"What if she doesn't?"

Natalie's eyes closed, arms crossed in a visible sign of her frustration. "Then we have to find her."

Alex nodded. "Let me change-" Pushing off the couch with a disgruntled sigh, she moved around it, heading for the bathroom, when the bedroom door opened, very nearly colliding with her face.

"JASON!"

Jason, hair flat against his head, wearing a ratty t-shirt and boxers with clowns on them, still appeared to be half asleep.

"Alex?" Rubbing at the mop on his head and blinking his eyes, he craned his neck. "You're still here?"

The brunette paused, glancing from Natalie back to her ex-boyfriend. "Yeah."

"Oh." Shifting his bare feet on the floor, Jason seemed to be stuck in an awkward silence. "So... going to the bathroom?"

The almost bashful look on his face tugged at the line of her mouth, threatening to turn it into a smile.

"Unless you're going in."

"No, no... go ahead." He bowed quickly, motioning in its direction with his hands. Once again, Jason's gaze snuck back to her. Still for a minute, as if taking her in, he finally let out a sigh. "Wow."

Alex blinked. "What?"

"I uh..." he coughed, clearing his throat, shrugging. "I just... it's been a while since I've seen you in that. You... you look good, Alex."

The heat that immediately went to her cheeks was almost embarrassing. Stepping back, she shrugged slightly. "Um... thanks. Why don't you go ahead? I've got some time."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Okay." He nodded, a hard swallow making his Adam's Apple bob. "It is my bathroom and all..."

"Right."

Holding her breath, she waited as he moved around her. Ample heat emanated from his body, and she felt it. When his palms brushed against her arms, feather light, she bit her lip.

She was incredibly grateful when the door closed, and her stiff body was finally able to relax.

Making her way back to the couch, Alex found Natalie gazing at her with what had to be an almost playful smirk dancing on her lips. "You know, you were holding your breath the whole time he was standing there."

Alex's stare was littered with frost. "Don't start."

Natalie shook her head, blonde strands skimming her shoulders as they shook with mirth. "You're lucky Dylan isn't here," she teased. "She wouldn't have missed an opening like that for anyone."

"Well, Dylan's NOT here, is she?"

The snap was inappropriate, unexpected, and Alex regretted it immediately when Natalie visibly blanched.

In a second, Alex was at her side, arms sliding around the blonde, head resting on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it."

"No, you're right. She's not here."

"For a reason."

"I know Dylan, Alex. You do, too. Even if she did leave, she would leave a note. We have to find her."

Alex contemplated. It was becoming increasingly painful to swallow, as her thoughts were with Dylan and her eyes were on the bathroom door.

"We're going after her," Alex said thickly. "I promise. But first I want to do something that'll keep us on track with this case."

Natalie's expression was curious. "What do you mean?"

Alex nodded. "Just something that's been bugging me."

--

Dylan Sanders was a remarkably heavy sleeper. It wasn't a very great gift to have when one was the closest thing to spy as she was, and as a result, survival instinct had given her something of a happy medium.

When Dylan woke up, Dylan woke up.

Alex said that was the weirdest thing of all, the way Dylan never seemed bleary eyed, never had the sudden dizzy pull back to sleep that she battled. Dylan's eyes opened, and suddenly everything came back.

Dylan was asleep, or not asleep. There was no in-between.

This morning, her eyes blinked open, and Dylan shifted immediately-

-to be caught with searing pain blasting from her ribcage.

Dylan's gasp was short, surprised. Her back fell to the sheets, and with darting eyes, she let her breath blow out, trying to regain her control as she found herself looking at an off white ceiling.

What the hell?

Her palm, for the moment rubbing at her ribs, stilled up on discovery that the tape holding her wounded bones together was not the dirty peeling one that she had stuck hastily before leaving the bungalow, but a pure white tape held in place by gauze.

Dylan was naked, covered only by linen sheets, cool and soft as air against her skin.

Her clothes, which according to her last coherent thought, had been muddy, sweat soaked and altogether icky, were folded and clean, resting on the side of the bed.

The bed. She was on a bed.

Dylan blinked, sucking in her breath to stave herself for the pain that had lessened to a dull throb, shifted herself up, resting gingerly on her elbows as she glanced at her surroundings.

Everything was white. There was no color to this place at all. White bed, with white sheets. The loft she was resting in was large, with varnished wood floors, a small, no-nonsense kitchen, the bed, and a large, clear space.

Where the hell was she?

Her head, previously ignored in her surprise, now reminded her of the blows she had received the night before. It pounded, large and looming.

Oh, God.

Seamus. Seamus was alive and after her. Again. And she wasn't dead, even if she was sure he could have killed her. She was in a strange place, and had no idea how she got there-

Her eyes closed. Clarity was returning every second, but it wasn't fast enough.

Dylan had had enough of being unsure of where she stood.

"Allright," she mustered in a decided whisper. "When I open my eyes, I will know exactly where I'm at, who I'm dealing with, and how the hell I ended up here."

Okay, that was wishful thinking at it's finest, but Dylan had learned from Nat, nothing was impossible if you believed in it hard enough (except pregnant males, and how that topic came up at breakfast one day, Dylan never wanted to remember).

With a deep, shuddering breath out, Dylan looked for her moment of calm, envisioned the fear, the paranoia, the insecurity sweep away from her, as if she was brushing it away herself with a broom.

Hands curling into fists, Dylan focused on the room.

Second glance, this time, calmer, more information.

The loft was a 1920's era building that was more than likely located in a high rise in Downtown. A quick glance at a crack in the white curtains over the many windows confirmed it. The floor was varnished, but well worn, and the bed had a barely perceptible dent on one side of it, indicating that whoever slept here, more than likely slept alone.

"Great," she whispered, "Now I'm starting to think like Alex. Indicating. Geez." Shaking her head, she let the sheet fall, and reached for her clothes. The loft was impeccably clean, but incredibly sparse. The wide open space could have been used for a number of things, but Dylan's growing suspicion was hammered through with a remembrance of a dream.

"Or not," she said, louder.

Barefoot, she pulled the shirt over her head, tossing the leather jacket onto the bed and padding to what looked like a closet.

There was nothing inside her now. She didn't know what she was feeling, or why she was here, but when she opened the door and found black upon black of shirts, blazers and suits, she had her answer.

"Thin Man," she said, reaching forward to touch one of the immaculately tailored suits. On the floor, lining the edge of the closet wall, were rows of Harley Davidson and Doc Marten boots of a surprisingly big- footed person. "Of course."

Closing the door with a bang, Dylan leaned against the wood, eyes now on the floor.

Scuff marks, sparring scuff marks. There, on the wall, black roaches against the white speck, were number of what she now knew to be swords, disguised as canes and umbrellas.

There was no gun, but she did remember when he threw it away in anger.

And the dream, what she thought was a dream, had been real. Fingertips felt the bump against her neck, the small rasp of skin lamenting the loss of her hair.

"So much for the going bald part," she muttered.

He hadn't killed her, at least that was a good sign. He hadn't tried to kill her since he kissed her, and since the last guy that kissed her (and her lips still stung in protest) had pretty much done that WHILE he tried to kill her, Dylan wasn't really banking on that as a safety net.

He had stripped her naked, bandaged her and cleaned her wounds. Her clothes had been washed, dried and then he left her here, alone.

Why?

Dylan wasn't sure she wanted to find out.

Stepping toward the bed, she reached for her jeans, ripped and torn at the knee like the kind she mangled as riffraff. She had one foot in the leg when the door opened.

Caught offbalance, there was no time to go into a defense stance as the Thin Man stepped into the room.

His eyes, a piercing blue that seemed almost abnormal, honed into her, He wasn't wearing the suit that had become his trademark, but black pants, black shirt, and a closed blazer that seemed equally severe.

There wasn't much Dylan could do, hopping on one foot with the other tangled in the leg of her pants, so she took a breath, smiled stiffly, and tossed out a "Hi."

He stared, cocking his head before slamming the door closed with a foot, moving across the floor to the window.

She wasn't sure if she was being ignored or given a moment for a last reprieve before he killed her.

Still, beggars couldn't be choosers. With a hiss of pain, she hopped the second leg into her pants, and began to pull them up.

And of course that was the moment he came at her like a cat.

She was too surprised to do much of anything when the steel grip of the Thin Man caught her about the waist.

"HEY!"

She struggled, but the fist she threw was merely brushed aside as he glared at her. One hand clamped to her hip, the other warding off her blows, Dylan was in no position to shimmy out.

"You know, you really earned that whole 'Creepy Thin Man' name!" she muttered.

He quirked an eyebrow in reaction. That was as much as she got before he clamped his mouth and reached for her shirt,

"Hey! There's such a thing as foreplay, buddy!"

When she raked him on the cheek, he lost patience.

Knees pushed on legs, arms grabbed arms, and sheer weight and loss of balance suddenly had Dylan on the bed. The Thin Man, surprisingly heavy for someone whose nickname was 'thin', kept his legs hooked about her knees. His crotch settled down on her hips, keeping her lower body buried, and one hand clamped two of hers together, holding them roughly against her chest.

"I'm so going to kill you," she whispered.

He ignored her. With the free hand, he silent placed his palm under Dylan's shirt, and roughly pulled up.

She struggled all the harder.

He only stared. Gently, with long fingertips, he began to inspect the bandage, smoothing over the bruised ribs before reaching for the paper bag that had fallen alongside of them.

In her surprise, Dylan's fighting jerks suddenly stilled. He pulled out a fresh roll of gauze.

"What..."

He gave her another glare, this one a little more meaningful, a 'Told you so', kind of stare, before he let go of both her hands and began to unroll it.

Pushing up to her elbows, Dylan stared, watching with a closed throat as he, as gently as he could, began to pull the gauze from around her stomach. When she hissed in pain, he paused.

In his glance was almost a question, as if, for the first time, he was asking for permission to continue, and when she hesitantly nodded, he pulled harder, shifting the used gauze away and grabbing the fresh roll.

"I can do it," she said huskily. With shaking hands, she tried to reach for it. He shook her off, shaking his head before moving off of her, indicating with a quirk of his hand that she should turn over.

Her eyes closed as smooth fingers drifted over her skin, gentle, as if he was barely touching her.

The jerk of his hands made her grunt with pain, but he was done.

With a shaky breath in, Dylan shifted over.

His eyes were amazingly blue.

Weird how she hadn't noticed it before.

"Thanks," she said finally.

Silence, so common with this man, took over, as he continued to stare, and she, for the purpose of doing anything at all, pulled her shirt down.

Yes, he was a killer. He had no morals, and he more than likely wouldn't hesitate to take her out if it served his purposes, but... what were his purposes?

Curiosity and instinct overruled common sense. She had no words for the moment, but she had learned in her dealings with this man that meaning could be conveyed in just the simplest of touches.

Gingerly, she leaned forward, fingers outstretched. He was still, watching her with hawk eyes as the hands came closer, closer.

When they reached his shirt, he batted them away.

"No!" she snapped. He paused, eyes narrowing. She tried again, and this time, he caught them, holding them at a distance. "I need to see," she ground out. "Please."

He had to understand. The man was a voluntary mute, but he was sharp, quickwitted. He had to be to survive so long in this profession.

When his palms relaxed, she smiled. Slowly, as one would touch an aggravated dog, Dylan curled her fingers over the fabric of his shirt, and after another glance at his face, pulled up.

The flatness of the stomach was something she expected. He gave a slight shudder that rippled through his whole body, as her fingers accidentally raked the muscles of his abdomen. She watched them tighten reactively, but she went further.

Her motion stopped when she found what she was looking for. Fingers brushed gauze.

With an unsteady breath in, Dylan readied herself. Palms swept gently over his skin until it was clear, the bandage that covered the upper half of his body, a spot about the size of her palm tainted rusted red.

Licking her ups, she shifted closer, eyes now mere inches away from him. She could feel his breath on her lips.

"Well," she said finally. "I guess we solved that mystery. You're not immortal after all. Just really, really lucky."

His lips twitched, almost as he tried to smile and found himself unable. Her head throbbed, and no longer able to ignore it, Dylan dropped her hands, closing her eyes and bringing a palm to her forehead.

"God," she whispered. "When Seamus gets pissed, he gets pissed."

There was a silent beat, and then she felt fingertips brushing against her cheek, moving gently to the nape of her neck-

Alarms went off in her head, and her eyes shot open.

"NO!" she snapped, pushing his hand away. He looked disgruntled, and tried again. "NO!" she said again, louder, firmer. Snatching at his hands, she glared back. "Listen, Anthony, or whoever the hell you are, I've only got so much hair, and if you keep yanking it off I'm going to be really, really pissed off. You've got like, four locks of them, okay? Just play with those."

Shoving at the bed, she threw his hands back at him, and grimaced into a standing position.

He was completely still, somehow managing to look dangerous and creepy despite the fact that he was sitting on a plush pure white bed, and had something close to a pout on his face.

"Why did you save me, anyway?" she snapped. "We're after you, you know that? We're AFTER you. You're killing people and we're the good guys and we take guys like you down!"

He narrowed his eyes.

"Don't look like that, okay?" Finding her boots next to the bed, she sat down in a nearby chair and began to yank them on. "You know perfectly well what I mean." She paused when she realized her socks were missing. Tossing him a snort, she glared, "Well? Where are they?"

He shrugged.

"I want them!" She didn't know who was acting more like a child, him or her. "Now!" she emphasized with a stomp of her foot.

For some reason, she knew that amused him.

Pushing off the bed, he stepped forward and crossed his arms. Right next to his dresser.

Fine.

Limping over, Dylan opened the top drawer, discovering dozens of white socks, neatly rolled together. She glanced. He smirked.

"Shut up."

Grabbing a pair, Dylan pulled them on roughly, hopping on one foot to get her boots on, and grabbing her jacket in the process.

"My phone..." she began patting her pockets, only to be struck by a dim memory of Seamus and a wall. "Shit," she whispered. "This is all your fault, you know. If you didn't go slinking around in dark alleys I wouldn't have gotten into this mess. Nat and Alex are probably going nuts trying to figure out where I am."

His face, or rather, his glare, was something like a blank canvas. She could visualize his response, almost like she was talking to a dog, or better yet, a cat.

This one seemed to say, "Tough."

"Shut up."

When she had regained her composure (she had given up on getting her cool back right right around when he caught her with her pants down), she marched up to him, still out of his plucking hand's reach, and gave him a nod.

"Fine. Look, because you didn't try to kill me, and even tried to help me by bringing me to the Psycho Ward, I'm going to give you about an hour to run out of here before me and my friends come back-"

The speech, however threatening, was cut off almost immediately by a hand gripping her shoulder. It came so quickly, so fast that she didn't have a chance to react. The Thin Man, Anthony, didn't change his expression. It was cold and calculating, and Dylan could swear not one muscle moved.

But she could read him. Suddenly, she knew what he was trying to say, by his too tight grip, and his answering glower.

"You didn't do it," she whispered suddenly. "That's what you're telling me, by bringing me here, by not killing me - you didn't do it and you want me to know..."

His grip only tightened, but Dylan was past caring. Stepping closer, too close, Dylan's hands moved to his passive face. "Why do you want me to know?"

He didn't blink, not when he stared at her, not when his fingers moved, slow and smooth like a magician-

With a yelp, she smacked him, rubbing at her scalp while he held the few strands he managed to grab to his face, rubbing softly.

"That is really starting to piss me off," she muttered. "Fine, whatever. I'm going."

She was halfway across the floor when she heard a soft, raspy, "No."

There was too much anger, too much frustration, a whirling confusion of thoughts and feelings that began to turn in a maelstrom in Dylan's heart. The enormity of the gesture didn't register. "No, what?!" Her words were angry, torn from her throat as if on a springboard. "No, WHAT, Anthony?"

He was struggling, visibly, body shaking, and eyes watery - a different man from the one that stood before her minutes earlier.

His mouth began to move, but the words didn't come with it.

Dylan's features, before frozen in anger, began to melt into something else, but what it was, she couldn't define.

"No," he finally managed.

It was too much.

She had no idea what he was trying to say. He was a killer, and all the evidence was pointing to him, he could have been saying "No, I don't want you wearing my socks," for all she knew.

Or he could have been saying, "No, I didn't do it."

God knew, why the hell she wanted to believe he said that.

He was trembling still, but his face had regained control, and he stood, straight and tall, palms fisted around the hair he stole while he waited for her reaction.

With a push of her breath, Dylan shook her head slowly, taking a small step back, increasing the distance.

On his chest, there was a silver medallion.

A glance back at the door, and one to his chest, and suddenly, she had no choice.

Moving quickly, she snapped it. He didn't flinch. The trembling had stopped, and he looked like a killer again.

"Prove it," she said, stuffing the medallion into her pocket.

She knew he'd let her go. She was never a prisoner here. She still didn't know what she had done to make him believe that she was different.

Things were so uncertain with him, and she hated that feeling.

She hated the feeling that consumed her as she slammed the door, found an elevator waiting, and stepped inside.

It was the feeling that he, a murderer, wasn't the murderer they were looking for.

That this time, The Thin Man was innocent.

--

The killer wasn't quite ready to give up on his celebrities, not yet.

Even if the women were extraordinary, even if they pulled at him, he wouldn't give it up. Not quite yet.

The media had named him 'The Celebrity Sniper'.

He was extraordinary.

It fascinated him. The fact that these women, these beautiful, extraordinary women, were after HIM. They were concentrated on HIM, and they were willing to do anything to find him.

No longer was he nameless, faceless, speechless.

He was named by them, pursued by them.

In the shadows, he watched her, the red-head, with her sexy stride, and her angered scowl. She was conflicted, she had doubts.

He wouldn't be nameless for long.

The killer knew he should rest. Take some time to plan this out, but it was of no consequence how long he waited. He had been waiting for years.

It was like a carnival, and his fifteen minutes were almost up.

He smiled, waving good-bye to the red-haired girl and picking up an itinerary for that night.

Yes, there it was, it hadn't disappeared.

It was still there, just like they said it would be.

His pass to the funeral of Annabeth Torres.

Where Jason Gibbons would be attending.

**end chapter **


	6. Chapter Six: Doubting Alex

**Chapter Six: Doubting Alex**

The scintillating allure of the Renaissance Hotel was not simply the fact that it catered to the famous and exclusive. There were numerous hotels nestled in Hollywood through Beverly Hills that could have claimed that. But the Renaissance Hotel prided itself on its privacy. It's ability to lure beautiful young women who in turn hoped to lure older bachelor millionaires. Even in the crisis following September 11th, when the rooms were empty and the lobbies sparse, the crowds would come to the Hotel bar, dressed in tight black dresses and diamond studded necklaces, Armani suits and thousand dollar Rolex watches.

Here, in the bar known for its obscurity, a beautiful blonde with breathtaking blue eyes and a sparkling gown of shimmering white lounged against the piano. Her heels -- tall, stiletto -- never made a sound as she made her way around the baby grand.

She wore a sinful smile and a smoldering glance, and the microphone, clasped in her long, elegant fingers, seemed to reach for her.

Her song was sweet, seductive, and almost mesmerizing.

The blond bombsell smoothed a palm over her dress, leaning forward, fingers rubbing into the scalp of the piano player before shimmying alongside of him.

Natalie's rendition of _'Daddy-0, I'm gonna teach you some blues_' was always a crowd-pleaser.

Alex's passive expression slowly formed into a smile.

Even in a tense operation, with a team member missing and the reputation of the Agency at stake, not to mention Jason's life and countless others, Natalie still found joy in her dance, in her song.

The ability to lose herself in something so completely, find the thrill that Alex only found in a puzzle, in danger, made Alex envy her.

Natalie was one-of-a-kind, a true Angel with beauty, brains, and just enough ditz in her to make her adorable beyond comparison.

A snap of fingers drew her out of her admiration, and immediately, Alex pulled hard at the little skirt. Weaving around the tables, Alex ignored the catcalls and whistles of the group of young stock brokers in the corner booth.

Yes, she was wearing a cocktail dress. Yes, those were garters she was wearing. Yes, she looked hot.

It didn't matter right now.

Pasting on a dazzling smile, she stopped at the table of a man wearing a ridiculously large diamond ring on his pinky. He was currently engrossed in Natalie's show.

"What can I get for you?"

"Apple martini," he said mechanically, never taking his eyes off the stage.

Abruptly dismissed, Alex didn't bother to nod. "Coming right up, sugar," she said deftly, picking up the abandoned Pina Colada and heading toward the bar, scanning the room as she went.

The room was full of wealthy, gray-haired men, but none were the one she was looking for.

Tossing the tray on the bar with a clatter, Alex leaned casually against it, eyeing the patrons one more time. The faster they got out of here, the faster they found Dylan.

"Apple martini," she tossed over her shoulder. The bartender was currently bent under the bar, gathering another batch of limes.

"Shaken, not stirred?" she asked, coming up with two handfuls.

The voice, tinged with amusement and teasing familiarity, caused a sudden rush of intense emotion. Jerking back, Alex was startled to discover Dylan Sanders, dressed in black leather pants and the tight black vest of the bartender, pulling out the martini glass.

"I find it's a chicken and the egg kind of problem," Dylan continued. "See, things are always fun when you stir them up, but shake 'em around, they kinda go boom."

"And we know how you like the 'boom-boom'," Alex clipped quickly, getting the joke over with before rushing into, "What happened to you?!"

Dylan's face was impeccably made up, but there was the faintest trace of a bruise forming under her cheek, another going purple just over her eye, and a small line of a split lip that had been covered carefully with lipstick.

Dylan grimaced, hands moving fast as she prepared the drink. "Don't ask, or better yet, do- just not right now. Bosley filled me in." Her eyes on the crowd, she motioned with a quick jerk of her head. "That our guy?"

Turning, Alex immediately spotted a dark middle-aged man seating himself in the center of the lounge. "FBI Special Agent James LeGros. That's him, allright." A quick, subtle thumbs up at the stage alerted Natalie.

The blonde lingered a second on Dylan. When the red-head waved back, Natalie's smile widened, gave a sly wink in their direction coming forth before her eyes closed and she began to belt out the chorus.

"_Do you hear me Daddy-o_," Dylan sang low, keeping the tempo. Raising the martini glass, and putting a chocolate martini on the tray beside it, she smiled meaningfully at Alex. "_I'm gonna teach ya some blues_."

With an air kiss, Alex took the tray, shaking her butt ridiculously for a laughing Dylan's benefit before dropping off the apple martini and heading for the FBI agent.

At her approach, his eyes drifted from Natalie and focused on her.

Breasts, that is.

"Good evening," he said, voice a rich velvet baritone.

"Good evening," she replied, smiling. "Heard you were coming today."

He smiled. "Did you?"

"Things must be really bad for you, what with that guy killing those actors and all."

"Don't worry, we'll find the bastard."

She smiled. "Well, just to keep your spirits up, here ya are." Depositing the chocolate martini in front of him, she motioned behind her. "Just something from me and the girls."

Following her line of sight, he discovered Dylan smiling, twiddling her fingers in greeting. His eyes widened.

Alex grinned. "And there."

He looked to where she pointed. On the stage, Natalie winked.

And he fell for it.

At first he seemed slightly amazed. With a chuckle that shook his shoulders, he reached for the flute. "I tell you, they don't give you service like this in Ohio."

"Don't they?" Alex clucked her tongue. "Well, we're just gonna have to treat you extra special then, aren't we?"

Winking, she turned, allowing him a nice view of her ass (not that it wasn't already there for all the world to see, thanks to the miniskirt with the ruffled underskirt), before shaking her hips as she walked away.

"Hey!" she paused, turning back. James LeGros tipped his martini at her. "Maybe I'll see you later?"

Lips pulling into a seductive smile, Alex let her voice drop an octave. "Count on it."

Moving back to Dylan, she dropped the tray and the attitude, giving Natalie a scissors motion before moving retreating behind the bar.

James LeGros, eyes on Natalie, took a sip of the martini.

Elbows keeping her weight on the wood, Dylan mused, "Just how many laws are we breaking here?"

"At least ten, not counting jurisdiction violations," Alex said quickly, untying the apron and tossing it on the counter. "Why?"

"I'm keeping track," Dylan muttered, pushing back from the bar and pulling at her own apron. "This year I think we're up to three thousand."

--

James LeGros had a hard week ahead of him, he knew. The death of both Sandy Chin and Annabeth Torres, now being billed in the press as an unfortunate coincidence, was a top priority with the FBI, and even he knew the big deal it meant to get put in charge of the case.

A killer who killed with different weapons, different genders, different everything.

He still wasn't sure they were related.

Still, it was best not to think of work. He was here to get away from that, and already, things were starting to look up.

The hot little waitress was a delicious way to get his mind off of things, this was a hotel after all. And maybe, if he was lucky, he could convince her to get her cute bartender friend to come play, too. Maybe get the lounge singer to join in for dessert.

For the good of the country and all.

It was a silly fantasy. He would be lucky if the cute Asian one even came back, but it was a nice place to visit, mentally, and even as he laughed, he took another sip of the martini, clapping as the blonde lounge singer gave a wave and a gracious smile before stepping off the stage.

It was only after about the fifth sip that he started to get queasy.

It was just an uncomfortable ache at first, a wave of dizziness that made him clench the edges of the wood table just a little harder.

Easy to ignore at first, barely perceptible.

The second wave hit just a little harder. He blinked, and blinked again, but nothing seemed to want to come into focus.

Then the chocolate of the chocolate martini started to gurgle in his stomach.

The sound that came from his abdomen caused more then one disgusted glance in his direction.

"Sorry," he said, palm slapping to his mouth, cutting off his words.

Uh-oh. Problem.

Stumbling up, he managed to upset the couple in the corner and a booth full of irate young stockbrokers, who all called him 'buddy'.

"Bathroom," he managed to the concierge.

The young man in the suite wrinkled his nose at him, and pointed the way.

It was by some God-send miracle that he was able to push open the door to the bathroom.

Unfortunately, he didn't quite make it to the stall.

What he did get, however, is a face full of white marble, refreshingly cool against his cheek.

It was almost okay, he figured, to just lie there, not moving at all.

At first, the clicks of heels on marble didn't quite register.

When his eyes opened, and he managed to push himself over, he was sure he had somehow passed out and was now dreaming.

The three women from the bar: the bartender, with her too tight white shirt and the red-lipped smirk, the cocktail waitress, running fingers through her hair, and lastly, coming alongside of him, still dressed in the beautiful silver gown, the sunlight coming through the window, lighting up her hair like an Angel come to save him, was the lounge singer.

His vision was growing increasingly blurry, but he fought as much as he could against it, trying to keep his eyes on the three Angels.

It was an effort he didn't win. The blonde knelt down, and he felt the soft caress of heaven on his face before she whispered, "We're really sorry about this, Mr. LeGros."

And then he passed out.

--

"WHAT?!"

The coffee cup in Bosley's hand fell with a clatter to the floor. Dark liquid spilled on the plush carpet, his shoes, and his pants.

He didn't seem to care.

"You did WHAT?!" he repeated. "You told me you were just gonna bug him!"

Despite the circumstances, Dylan couldn't resist a smile.

"Well..." Natalie began methodically. "Not exactly. Alex did say it was bugging her."

"We couldn't risk getting caught, Bosley," Alex said. "We needed all the help we could get."

Bosley, now stuck in a stammer, looked helplessly back at the speakerbox . "Charlie, you gotta help me out here, man. I can't handle these girls."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Charlie," Dylan said.

"While I agree with Bosley on the extreme nature of the job, at least you got it done," Charlie said. "Just be more careful next time."

Alex nodded dutifully, but Dylan had to cover her mouth to cover her smirk. Natalie pinched her in response. Dylan pinched back.

"Now," Charlie continued. "Back to the important issue. Are you sure it was Seamus O'Grady, Dylan?"

The mischievous expression immediately fell from Dylan's face. "Yes. I'm sure. I mean, he beat me up and left me for dead. I'm pretty damned sure."

Natalie sighed. "We should have gone looking for you."

"It's my fault. I shouldn't have left like that."

"Dylan..." Alex looked prepared to say something, and the grim frown on her face tinged with hesitation. Dylan nodded slowly.

"I'm sorry," she said gently.

Alex's mouth tightened, and she seemed to struggle with her frustration, before letting it go. Fingers tangling with Dylan's, her head moved to rest on her shoulder.

"I'm just glad you're all right," she answered. Dylan's cheek rested on her forehead. She squeezed back.

"I'm a little nervous about the idea of the O'Grady clan still intact," Charlie continued. "Especially with the vendetta Seamus seems to have against you, Dylan."

"Yeah, I'm not too hot on that fact either," she muttered back.

"When we finish this case we should go after them," Alex said methodically. "Get to them before they try to bring us down."

"That definitely is a priority, Alex," Charlie agreed.

Dylan found herself swallowing hard, tension causing an ache in her lower back. She shifted on the couch, hissing slightly.

"Ribs hurt?" Alex asked in a low voice.

Catching her glance with a startled one of her own, Dylan smiled quickly. "Something like that."

"Wait a minute..." Natalie's brow tilted with confusion. "Dylan, how did you get out of the alley?"

That question was going to come up eventually, it had to. Everyone was staring with genuine curiosity, concern, and Dylan knew that she had to tell them the truth.

And then they would know the Thin Man saved her, and they would go after him, just like she told him they would.

Her throat suddenly began to ache, and she had to force herself to swallow, twice, before she shrugged unwillingly, and found herself saying, "Standard Good Samaritan. And dumb luck."

Why the hell did she say that?

Still, the truth stuck in her throat, and she settled for glancing at Bosley.

"You're a lucky girl, Dylan," Charlie noted.

Natalie immediately nodded, but Alex wasn't looking at her face.

Shit. Shit.

Quickly, as subtly as she could, Dylan pushed the medallion further into her cleavage, hiding it within her blouse.

Alex caught her glance, and at the first her face was filled with befuddlement.

Then Alex's expression closed, and her mouth pursed.

Her fingers moved away from Dylan's hands.

"Alex," Dylan began in a whisper.

"Ooh! Guys! Check it out! LeGros is on the move!" Natalie said, hopping up in her seat as she pointed to the screen.

There, in a window on the right, there was movement, up the stairs into the FBI headquarters, through hallways.

"And the others?" Charlie asked.

"All fine," Natalie said with a smile. She nodded to the two other windows taking up the screens. "We got Mary this morning in the sauna-"

"I don't even want to know where you bugged her," Dylan said with a smirk.

"-And we got James Huntoon, the head of the CIA, in the Lava Lounge," Alex said, ignoring the comment.

"They can't do a thing without us knowing about it," Natalie finished. "We'll have all their resources, and ours. If they're going to blame us for this, we're going to make sure they help us get him."

"Are we recording all this, Bosley?" Alex asked, voice harder than normal.

"Got it all, Angels," Bosley answered. "Don't you worry about nothing."

"Great," Dylan said, moving quickly away from Alex and her unspoken accusation. "We'll examine the footage-"

"And use that, and our own investigation to find the Thin Man," Alex finished. "We still don't know who he's working for, but we'll find out by the end of today."

"Good work, Angels," Charlie said. "It sounds like you're on the right track."

It was a great idea. In Theory.

Unable to keep silent anymore, Dylan sighed, rubbing just under her nose in a frustrated gesture. "I have to admit guys, I'm still not sold on the idea."

Alex's stare was pure frost. "All the proof is pointing to him, Dylan. We have no other suspect. There is no other option."

Dylan struggled with the statement. "I just don't think it's him. Why would he do this? There's no motive. What if... I don't know he's being framed or something-"

Natalie gave her a frown. "Dylan, that's the one thing we do know. We don't make mistakes."

Sure. Only she did. Eric Knox. Seamus. The Thin Man.

Dylan's eyes closed. Dammit.

"Unless there's something you want to tell us," Alex said crisply. Dylan's eyes opened. Her friend's almond eyes were staring at her, as if giving her one more chance.

It was now or never.

Dylan tried. She did.

"No," she said finally. "You're right. It's... it has to be him."

Alex stared at her a beat longer than necessary, and Dylan couldn't keep the eye contact.

Blowing her breath out, she looked away.

"Well, here's what we do know," Natalie said. "Everyone on the list is an A-list actor. The two that have died so far have been at public events."

"Which means Jason's safe at home," Dylan added, tone indicating it was back to business as usual.

Alex didn't look at her. Instead, her eyes were on the list that Natalie had printed.

"Well, the funeral for Annabeth is tonight. Guaranteed media coverage on all major stations, and anybody who's anybody will be there."

"Which means another public place..." Natalie continued.

"Another opportunity to kill somebody," Dylan finished.

"Angels, put on your mourning wear," Charlie ordered.

Alex nodded heavily. "Guess we're going to a funeral."

--

Annabeth Torres had grown up in Glendale, California.

It was hardly the ghetto, but still, it was enough of a city dwelling to make Mary Briggs more than a little alert.

Forest Lawn Mortuary was used to large crowds, thanks to the museums, sculptures and gardens that populated it, but the LAPD wasn't about to trust the entire event to a bunch of bored security men.

Standing at the gravesite, she surveyed the area.

Police squad cars were parked everywhere, painting the landscape red, white and blue. Cops in uniforms, some laughing, some eating doughnuts, milled about.

She shook her head.

"This is a funeral, not a government function," she clipped to the man behind her. "Get them out of here."

The seargent looked startled. "But Mary-"

"Get me some plain clothed officers and get those sirens out of my sight." She swallowed hard. "It's going to be enough of a circus with all the damned paparazzi. We're better than this. Let's have a little respect."

He stared at her for another beat, but finally nodded. "Whatever you say, Mary."

Near the area where the gravesight had been selected was a nest of Pines. Coupled with the crowds that were surely going to arrive, it would be next to impossible to keep security tight.

"Another couple hours, Mary," she told herself. "You can breathe then."

Still, breathing still seemed harder than usual. The tons of officers and their peppering of questions had given her a headache, and since the trees were the only area clear, she moved in their direction.

As she moved past the diggers, her steps faltered. Standing under the trees, a man watched. He was dressed in pure denim, hair scruffed up in a make-shift Mohawk.

Mary's eyes narrowed. Great. This was the last thing she needed.

With a shake of her head, Mary went to meet him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here?" she clipped.

The punk took a long drag of his cigarette, shrugging uncaringly.

"Checking out the scenery," he said, blowing a whiff of smoke in her face.

Coughing, she waved it away from her face. "Get out of here."

The smile on his face grew smile, almost malicious. "Whatever you say, lass." In an exaggerated mockery of her command, he tossed the cigarette to the ground, mashing it out with a big black boot. Immediately, he pulled out another, offering it to her with the same polite sarcasm. "Smoke?"

"I don't smoke," she said crisply. "I'm not going to ask you again. Get out of here."

"My, someone's got a crick in their arse," he quipped. "Fine, fine." With a graceful sweep, he pulled a lighter from his pocket, snapping at the flint easily. He took his time lighting his cigarrette, before finally pulling it from his mouth, winking devilishly at her. "Have fun at the funeral."

He pounded into her side with his. Mary felt the push of something being inserted into her pocket. She almost reached for her gun, but the punk Irishman was already walking away.

Reaching inside, she pulled out the lighter. Inscribed on the silver case was an American Flag.

"Sick fuck," she whispered.

Shaking her head, she moved back to the funeral.

Two hours.

--

"You look evil," Dylan had once told her.

It wasn't really Alex's fault. She gravitated towards black, and the fact that without her smile, and her warm eyes covered in shades, the all black ensemble made her look like something out of the Matrix, wasn't something she could do much about.

The cover was a Secret Agent, and she looked the part. Still, the black slacks, black blazer, black shades, seemed to personify her mood.

It seemed her entire world had tipped into turmoil, and Alex, a glutton for control, still wasn't able to understand how it happened.

"My lighter," Dylan said suddenly. Immediately, she stopped, eyes sweeping the ground for any trace of the silver trinket. "I've lost my lighter."

Natalie, currently having issues with her heels sinking into the grass, didn't look. "Did you just drop it?"

Considerably bothered, Dylan bit her lip. "I don't know. I can't remember when I last grabbed it..."

"Go look for it," Alex countered quickly. "I'm sure you just dropped it coming out of the car." When both Dylan and Natalie threw her bewildered glances, she shrugged. "You know how she is when she doesn't have her lighter," she told Natalie.

"But I don't even know if I dropped it here or if-"

"Just check," Alex said again. "We'll stand guard here. It'll be better if we fan out anyway."

It wasn't part of the plan. They were supposed to be in the middle of it, the thick of the crowds, in hopes of spotting a killer who liked to take his victims within fifteen, twenty feet. Dylan was torn between the need to stick to Plan A and the need to find her lighter. Her steps hesitated, and she bit her bottom lip in hesitation before finally looking toward Natalie for the final okay.

Natalie shrugged. "Check the perimeter while you're at it," she suggested.

Still, Dylan was smarter than that. The glance she threw Alex was a hesitant stare. Alex gave her nothing back. All Dylan caught was her profile, as Alex kept her face on the crowds in an effort to hide her face.

"Sure," Dylan said finally, throwing a thumb behind her. "I'll be right back."

"Take your time," Alex responded. "We'll be fine."

Once again, the tone disconcerted Dylan, but she obediently nodded, giving them both a quick smile before jogging back across the lawn, maneuvering around the throng as she went.

Still in eyeshot, but fifty feet away, Alex waited until Dylan was a speck against the lawn before she grabbed Natalie's elbow, moving into a particularly crowded patch of mourners.

"Alex, what are you-"

With a tap on Natalie's palm, she began to tap, quickly. The morse code was quick, no nonsense, but Natalie didn't understand why.

'Take out your molar mike', Alex beat again. Natalie frowned. Immediately, she took Alex's palm in hers.

'Why?' she signed back.

Alex put a finger into her mouth. With a wince, she clipped the molar mike from her tooth, stuffing it into her gloves.

"Alex?!"

With a quick shake of her head, she tapped Natalie's cheek. Natalie's mouth was wide open, so Alex went in to do it herself.

"Okay, okay!" Natalie pushed at her hands, reaching into her mouth and plucking it out. "Fine," she said after it was done. "What is it?"

"Dylan lied."

The slight irritation on Natalie's face immediately gave way to surprise. "What?!"

"Dylan lied. At the Agency."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes!" The outburst made more than a few people viewing the procession glance over. Alex swallowed, and leaned in closer. "At the Agency, she had the medallion on. The one she said the Thin Man took?"

Natalie froze. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Natalie."

"But it could have been any-"

"It wasn't." Alex was angry. It had taken her about four hours to come to terms with it, but it was true. She was angry. Beyond angry. Dylan lied. Dylan LIED. "If she had it on, then she must have gotten it back, and if she must have gotten it back-"

"Then she knows where he is."

"And she didn't tell us," Alex finished.

The static in her ear caused a small spark.

"Hey guys?" Dylan interrupted. "There's a bigger crush of people in here. I probably should stay out here; scan the perimeter to see what I can."

Natalie, too overwhelmed to respond, crossed her arms, and straightened, still processing what she heard. Alex took a breath, opened her hand, and spoke crisply into it. "That works, Dylan. We'll keep an eye-out over here."

"Sounds good, guys."

Alex covered the mike again. Natalie looked visibly stricken. Pulling at the sunglasses that framed her face, her head shook minutely. Chin dropping, she whispered, "I can't believe Dylan would lie to us."

Alex looked away, heart aching. "Just promise me, when funeral is over, that we'll talk to her."

Natalie, beautiful and lost, finally just nodded. "Yeah. We'll talk to her."

Alex took in a breath. "Thank you."

Natalie said nothing as she clipped the molar mike back in her mouth.

--

Dylan had lost her lighter.

She never lost her lighter.

What the hell?

Shaking her head, Dylan kept her eye on the crowd. Annabeth Torres, beautiful, charismatic, just a little bit nutty, had been paid twenty-five million to make Cash Craze, more than any actress had ever before been given.

She had been loved by many, and even in death, she had her fans.

Lining the security tape, throngs of civilians clamored, watching with candles and rosaries. Some were openly crying. The funeral was open to many in the industry, and every minute, more and more people wearing black and sunglasses were making their way across the lawn to the gravesite.

There was just too many for three women to find one assassin. It was a nightmare.

In an effort to sharpen her vision, Dylan took the frames from her face. This was important. If they found the guy here (and he had to be. Most serial killers always returned to the scene of the crime to relive the fantasy of it all, and the killer certainly wouldn't want to miss this), then Dylan could have something other than instinct to prove it wasn't Anthony.

Anthony. When did he start being Anthony and not 'The Thin Man'?

"Shit, Dylan," she whispered. "Don't do this. He's our guy. He has to be our guy."

But his expression haunted her, the stricken look in his face, the 'no' that came so unwillingly from his lips. He had almost died in an effort to save her before.

Maybe it made them even. For all the times he had tried to kill her...

So why did she still feel she owed him one?

"Focus, Dylan," she whispered.

Dylan shuddered, shoulders shaking to get him away from her thoughts, and refocus herself back to where she should have been. Finding the killer.

The funeral procession was a virtual who's who of the entertainment industry, and since the entertainment industry was full of weirdos anyway... it wasn't going to be easy.

Alex and Natalie were in the thick of it, and judging from the silence in her ear, it seemed they were having no better luck.

The heat burned down on her, scorching her like she was in a rich man's hell. She sighed, unbuttoning her blazer, fanning herself to keep cooler.

One by one, celebrities moved by her. No one noticed the Secret Agent who stood stock still, and it was what Dylan wanted. They weren't supposed to be looking at her, but at the gravesite. It allowed her to observe each face without suspicion, filing away profiles and gaits.

But there was someone watching her.

It was a sixth sense at first, the kind everyone got. But quickly, it emerged into a shudder in her spine, nerves tingling, causing a shortness of breath.

Her head jerked, and suddenly, she saw him, coming out of the crowd like some sort of Lance Burton, almost a mirage.

Great. She could FEEL him now?

"Oh, this cannot be happening," she whispered, gaze frozen on him as he kept coming, a cigarette in his hand, a cane in the other, black suite molded to his lithe frame.

"What's up, Dylan?" Natalie chirped in her ear.

She didn't answer. Her body was stock still, and Dylan had the suspicion that even if she tried to move, she would have been unable.

Anthony's mouth was a scowl, as usual. His eyes, however, were different. They vibrated with something, brimmed with an emotion she had only glimpsed in his flat.

He put the cigarette to his mouth, took a long puff, and now, only a foot away, he placed it gently at her lips.

"Dylan?!" Alex said.

Her gaze locked with his, Dylan's lips opened. He waited, and she sucked her breath in, taking in the nicotine, letting it settle in her lungs.

His mouth twitched, before he pulled the cigarette from her mouth, ignoring the stinging acrid smoke that made her eyes water.

Now, mere inches away, his palm slid from her face, to her throat, down her shoulders, her arms, until fingers tangled with her own.

The Thin Man pushed something flat and cold into her palm.

Not letting go, he moved closer, until they were barely touching, thighs to thighs, groin to groin, chest to chest- a caress on her face, and his breath on her throat...

Fuck.

She closed her eyes, suddenly unsure of what she wanted, too bewildered to make sense of anything.

There was the slightly sense of the silkiness of lips sliding against her jawline.

Sucking in her breath, Dylan clenched his fingers.

Just as quickly, he let go. When Dylan's eyes opened, he was gone, and Jason Gibbons was in his place, dashing in a black suit, his trademark befuddled expression on his face.

"Jason!" she began immediately, glancing dizzily around him. No sign of Anthony. Of the Thin Man.

"Dylan," Jason greeted. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Our job," she answered quickly. "We're just... making sure everything's okay."

"Jason's there?" Alex asked in her ear.

"Yeah," Dylan answered. With a wave of her palm, she motioned to the crowded gravesite. "Alex and Nat are up there."

"I'm not here to see Alex," he clipped grimly. "I'm here to pay my condolences to a friend."

Yeah. Someone died. And they still didn't know who did it. Dylan smiled sadly. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said gently.

Jason blinked, eyes moist in their emotion. Stepping forward, he gave her an awkward hug. "See you up there," he said.

"Sure..."

Turning, Jason walked away from her, moving with his entourage up the lawn.

Left alone, Dylan finally remembered the cold metal object she was still clutching in her palm.

With a ragged sigh, she spread her fingers, looking down.

The Thin Man had given her back her lighter.

--

"There he is," Alex said, gripping Natalie's elbow as Jason Gibbons moved past photographers to the small group of celebrities sitting next to the grave.

"All right," Natalie said softly. "You go closer, and I'll take the middle circle. Dylan's on the outside. We should catch whoever's..."

But he was there. Just as she knew he would be.

With a hard squeeze, she stopped Natalie mid sentence, nodding subtly.

"There," she whispered. "The Thin Man."

He looked as creepy in daylight as he did at night. Black suit, hair slicked down, he was unmistakable, cold blue eyes on the ground before him, moving away from the funeral, in his hand the ever present cigarette.

"Oh my God," Natalie whispered. "Dylan-"

"Let's go," Alex whispered.

The crowds were getting thicker, and it was nearly impossible to keep him in sights.

Alex lost him almost immediately, but Natalie, taller and quicker, kept moving.

"Jason," Alex whispered.

Natalie immediately nodded. "I lost him," she said. "I'm going to go up. You go watch Jason."

Alex was already moving, pushing past bodyguards and celebrities as the flash of lights starting getting brighter.

The music started with an obnoxious beat of electric guitar. It was almost inappropriate for a funeral. But KISS had been Annabeth's favorite rock band, and they were here, paying their respects with their rendition of 'Beth'.

Natalie broke away, moving as quickly as she could away from the funeral, trying vainly to find where the Thin Man had disappeared.

Alex kept her eyes on Jason.

Whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen now. She could feel it.

And then it did.

So fast, and too soon, she couldn't stop it. She couldn't see with the crowd, and there was nothing but the shot that came out of nowhere and the cry of crowds as they began to run.

Alex's heart burst as she broke into a run.

"Government Agent," she snapped. "Out of the way!" She pushed as hard as she could, the crowd now in chaos making her stumble against the crush of bodies. "GUYS! NOW!"

"We're on our way!" Natalie yelled.

"I'm coming!" Dylan screamed in her ear.

Alex's logic had run away from her, and any reason was pushed away with pure instinct, pure need. Her heart beat erratically with fear, and she only ran, dropping her sunglasses away from her, squinting in the sun.

It was too late. It was too late.

She burst through the crowd to find the victim on the ground.

It was too late.

"JASON!"

Alex dropped to her knees, suddenly overcome, voice crackling with pain, splintered with tears.

With a sob of panic, she crawled, ignoring the officer's warnings, pulling Jason to her, as his head dropped back into her lap.

His eyes were closed.

A red stain was quickly spreading on his stomach.

It was too late.

**End chapter**


	7. Chapter Seven: Dylan Iscariot

**Chapter Seven: Dylan Iscariot**

Onscreen, Hollywood's foremost action figure had stood toe-to-toe against an army of terrorists and prevailed. He had scaled Mount Everest and skied his way down. He had fought in Air Force One, fell from the open lift, and landed unscathed. He had stood still while a man fired a whole machine gun clip at him and hit nothing but air.

In reality, Jason Gibbons was lying in a hospital from a simple gunshot wound to his stomach. His coloring, usually a beautiful tan with just the right amount of pink that tinted his ears and cheeks whenever he got excited or embarrassed, was now pale, sallow.

The beautifully big smile that spread from ear to ear, breaking hearts everywhere, had a thin lipped almost scowl in its place.

His long eyelashes were unchanged. Alex, in a bout of insomnia, had once spent an entire night watching him breathe, noting the way that they skimmed the skin underneath his eyes. They were the longest that she had ever seen, and she discovered, that night, that she could never tire of watching them flutter.

It created a different sort of reaction in her now.

Jason got manicures more often than she did. His skin was amazingly soft against her lips. Alex's eyes closed, sliding his still palm from her lips to her cheek, rubbing against it slowly.

The beep-beep of the monitor provided a bittersweet backdrop, and Alex, alone for the first time since the events that had led them to this hospital room, thought of nothing but the past.

"You know..." she began, voice almost broken with tremoring emotion, "You used to really scare me, Jason. I never understood how you could be so... happy just to be with me. You had everything in the world, and all you wanted was me."

She drew the hand in her lap, moving gently to sweep an errant bang off of his forehead.

"I never understood that. How do you do that? How does one person put so much love, so much trust, and value on something as fragmented, as reckless as a soul?" She shook her head. "I didn't know who I didn't trust more, you or me, but it doesn't matter, does it?" She continued to caress his brow, moving to gently line his lips. "Because I get it now, Jason. I finally understand what you've been telling me. I've got two doctorates and I've been in space and it took a guy who made a career out of being professionally goodlooking to spell it out for me."

He lay perfectly still, eyes closed, hand listless in her own. She clutched it anyway, leaning until her lips were pressed against his cheek, forehead gently resting against his.

"I love you, Jason," she finally whispered. "I don't care if I could die tomorrow, or that we never see each other, or how famous you get. I want to be with you."

In Alex's post-feminist world, she played her own prince, leaning across his body to place her lips on his, gentle, sweet.

He slept on.

"What are you doing here?"

Ricki, Jason's agent, stood in the doorway, holding together a huge bouquet of roses.

"Hey, Ricki. I was just leaving."

Ricki's smile was cold. "Ms. Munday, I don't know who let you in here, but-"

"I let myself in, Ricki. And I'm going to keep letting myself in, just like I always have, and just like I always will." Her tone, calm and quiet for Jason's benefit, rang with authority, and just a little threat. Ricki's smile fell from her face, and the smaller women, with her Coach bag, and her Gucci shoes, almost gave a full step back when Alex tacked on, "So get used to it."

"You've done my client some damage, Ms. Munday." Ricki's angered statement stopped Alex at the doorway. With a hand on the doorway, and an eye on Jason's bed, Alex finally nodded.

"More than you know," she answered crisply. "But I'm about to set at least one thing straight."

--

Pete had long ago succumbed to sleep.

His lean frame seemed heavier than Natalie remembered. Plastered across her lap, his face buried in her stomach, the rumblings of his heavy breathing caused a tickle in her tummy. Natalie's body ached, but disciplined kept her from moving, hand rubbing through Pete's hair, as she shifted uncomfortably on the hard plastic chair.

Nurses moved back and forth through the hallways. A lifeless, melancholy version of 'Against All Odds' played in the speakers, wafting down to Natalie while a child, scampering over chairs while the tired mother dozed in the corner, hummed along.

Natalie hated hospitals. It was one of the main reasons she had chosen not to become a practicing doctor. Her parents, wonderful as they were, had a hard time understanding at first, why Natalie, who loved to help people, would decide against it.

Dylan had been the first to truly get it. She had nodded over breakfast one day, munching on a corn muffin when Natalie mentioned it casually, and her response was simple. "Sure. I mean all that gloom and doom and dying would whither you away. Natalie needs sunshine."

It was that simple.

Natalie needed sunshine.

Heavy boots clicked their way across the floor, and when Natalie looked up wearily, she discovered Dylan, still dressed in the Secret Agent's black suit, holding out a cup of coffee.

At this point, what Alex said Dylan did didn't matter. It was still Dylan smiling down at her, green eyes glittered with warmth of love and family.

Natalie took the cup gratefully. "Thanks," she said.

"Careful," Dylan said, lifting up Pete's feet to slide under, settling in next to her. "It's hot."

"I need it."

"Don't we all," Dylan responded. Natalie took a moment to wrinkle her nose at the bitter liquid - Vienna Roast it was not - before looking up as Dylan asked after a beat, "So what's the word?"

"Only Alex was able to get in, but the official press release is that he's going to be okay. The gunshot hit him in the stomach."

Dylan frowned, looking away. "That's weird."

Natalie glanced back up. "Why is that weird?"

Dylan seemed hesitant to express it, but at the curious look in Natalie's blue orbs, she finally took a breath.

"Well, the killer never had a problem with aim before. He wouldn't go for the head, but he would make sure they were dead."

"Maybe he slipped up," Natalie answered, voice just a little more distant than before. Dylan was venturing into work related talk, and although Natalie knew they would have to get there eventually, it only served as a reminder of Dylan's lie.

"He wouldn't slip up," Dylan said. "He's good, Natalie. Really good."

Natalie pursed her lips, eyes on Pete as she ran fingers through strands. "I agree."

"Regardless," Dylan said. "We should try to get into that evidence room and figure it out."

"Why bother?"

The third entrance into the conversation made them both look up. Alex strode forward, eyes a watery coal, and a stony, closed expression no her face. "We know who he is. And we're going after him. Where is he Dylan?"

Oh, God. Here it came.

Natalie's heart jumped into her throat, unable to resist turning to see Dylan's reaction.

Dylan only had eyes for Alex. Her face was open, naked, and the surprise that swept over it was easy to read.

"What?"

"The Thin Man, Dylan," Alex said crisply. "Where is he?"

"Alex-"

"I'm not going to let him finish what he started, Dylan. You know where he is. Tell me."

"Alex, I don't -"

"Don't you dare lie to me," Alex whispered.

Natalie's fingers clutched into Pete's hair.

Her boyfriend yelped, driven from his sleep by the pain, and teetering off her and Dylan's lap.

Regaining his balance, Pete wiped off his pants, and smiled to all three girls.

"Hello," he said good-naturedly.

"Pete," Natalie began, slowly and deliberately. "Go get me a coffee."

Pete looked understandably confused. "You got one right there."

Natalie quirked an eyebrow, shaking her head slowly. Pete slowly turned his head, and discovered the ample tension that arose between Dylan and Alex. Both women had eyes for no one but each other, and Pete, based on his unfortunate positioning, had been placed right smack in the middle.

"Coffee!" he said quickly. "Right! I'm going to get you some coffee, Natalie. Anyone else?" He gave a polite smile to Dylan. "Dylan? Alex?" Dylan stiffly shook her head. Alex merely cocked an eyebrow. "Okay... I'm gone...."

Backing away slightly, he cast Natalie a sympathetic glance before heading down the hallway.

Immediately after, Natalie finally tried to break in, taking advantage of the brief lapse to step between her two friends and partners.

"Guys, I think maybe we should try to calm down before-"

"Alex, I'm sorry, I lied," Dylan said stiffly. "If you would just let me explain-"

"I don't want an explanation, Dylan," Alex ground. The brunette's form was stiff. "I just want him."

When Dylan glanced at her, Natalie wasn't sure what to offer in return.

Dylan had lied, and even though this wasn't the time nor the place, there wasn't any point in avoiding it. Alex wouldn't accept it.

And Natalie would have been lying if she hadn't felt just the tiniest twinge of anger as well.

But Dylan was displaying an admirable sense of control. Her breathing was even, despite the labored heaves of her chest in an effort to maintain it, and her voice was firm, not angry, not yet - but not apologetic.

"Alex, if I thought for one second that this would have happened-"

"You should have, Dylan, You knew what we knew, you knew more than us, and you kept it from us, and now Jason-"

"I did what I thought was necessary!" Dylan said finally, voice rising in her emotion. "I'm just not sure it was him, okay? It just doesn't make sense?"

"What wouldn't?" Alex returned. "He's a killer, Dylan! Do you get that? He's an assassin. That's what he does!"

The last sentence was a shout. Nurses and doctors were beginning to stare.

Natalie tried again. "Guys-"

"I'm tired of you falling for the bad guy, over and over, ignoring their faults just because -"

"Is that what you think?" Dylan asked, eyes suddenly wide, and breath sucked in with amazement. "That I'm fucking him? That this is some sort of last ditch effort to protect my lover?!"

Oh, crap. Now Dylan was getting mad. She was at the cursing stage. A habit that Natalie had managed to break her of years ago. Natalie sank down on the chair, rubbing her eyes.

"Listen, ALEX. I may have bad taste in men, but that NEVER conflicted with my job!"

"Oh, no?" Alex asked with mock surprise.

"NO," Dylan ground back. "Eric Knox? Yeah, mistake. I kicked his ass, and if I recall, we blew him up. Seamus? Yeah. A big mistake - I sent the bastard to jail and then thought I had killed him. Don't you fucking tell me I choose men over you two, Alex. I wouldn't do that. That's not what this is about."

"Then what is it about, Dylan?" Alex asked, coming closer, now only a foot away from Dylan. "Because all I'm seeing is you withholding information on a suspect you just happened to kiss!"

"Oh, you know what? You're one to fucking talk, okay?"

"Excuse me?" Alex asked, voice now a dangerous level.

"You know what I mean," Dylan snapped, ignoring the crowd of nurses to step closer. "You think I'm blinded by love? It only took you a gunshot in Jason's stomach to finally admit you loved him?"

"OKAY, ENOUGH!" Natalie spat. Pushing forward, she came between both women, hands on each shoulders to keep them from moving any closer to the other. "This has gotten way out of hand."

"Nat-"

"No, Alex. This is not the time or the place. Dylan? We are going to talk about this, and we are going to LISTEN - but not in a hospital ward, and not when it can disrupt not only our identities but our jobs."

Her grip was rock hard on both shoulders, holding them in place as she snapped. Finally, Dylan and Alex seemed to see the crowds.

Dylan blushed and stepped back, arms crossed as she turned to grab her jacket. Alex merely looked away.

Natalie's heart was racing, and her chest was so tight with anxious emotion it ached. But she took a breath, and nodded toward the door. "I'll go get Pete."

"No, Natalie," Alex said firmly. She was quiet, stiff. "I'm done talking. Dylan, I don't care what's happened. What I need from you is concrete proof why you think the Thin Man is not our guy."

"All I have is instinct, Alex," Dylan said, just as severe, just as stiff, but there was a note of pleading in her voice. "I'm just asking you to trust that. At least until I get proof."

Natalie licked her lips, looking back and forth between her friends, her sisters.

Alex's cheek twitched, and in her beautiful face, something seemed to give, almost -

But her eyes moved to Jason's door, and everything hardened all over again. "I'm sorry, Dylan," Alex said. "But I have an instinct, too, and it's with Jason, and I have to trust that." Glancing at Natalie, and back to Dylan, she said finally, "I'm going after him. I would... like you to come with me. Since I do need you. You can tell me where he is, but I'll find him either way."

Jerking on her blazer, Alex pulled out the sunglasses that were resting on the inside pocket, and placed them over her eyes. Moving past them both, she walked away, down the hallway, through the door.

In the silence that followed, Natalie knew a choice was coming. Dylan and Alex, independent souls - only once had they, without meaning, pulled her in two directions.

Back then, it was almost amusing, handcuffed to each girl, protesting in half irritated amusement that she wasn't a yo-yo.

Now, it wasn't quite so funny.

"Nat," Dylan began, in a voice so broken and conflicted she sounded like a child. "I need to know..."

"Dylan," Natalie interrupted. Suddenly tired, it was as if the world, at this exact time, had decided to rest the entire weight of it upon her shoulders, while Dylan and Alex called to her from opposite sides. "I want to... Dylan... I do, but... I have to go with what we have. I can't do instinct, with this much evidence."

Dylan swallowed hard. She flinched away, as if Natalie had struck her.

"Dylan, if you come with us, maybe we can get him without violence. At least if we have him-"

"And what? Turn him over to the police? And let the real killer stay out there?"

Natalie's eyes closed in frustration. "At least, with him away, in a safe place, we would know-"

"That would kill him, Nat."

"Dylan, what do you want? Do you want us to just let him go? Pretend all that evidence isn't there? When Jason's lying with a hole in his gut?" Natalie finally snapped. "Come on, Dylan! You're an Angel!"

A simple, bitter laugh resonated from Dylan. Eyes closed, she looked the very picture of a broken doll.

"Yeah. I'm an Angel," she answered. Eyes opening, a remarkably clear gaze sent in Natalie's direction was not judging, but clearly resigned. "And I'm sending him to Hell."

Natalie didn't realize Pete was standing there, watching with two cups of hot coffee in his hands, until Dylan moved around him.

In the end, he was all she had left, her solace in a pair of beautiful brown eyes, and two cups of coffee.

--

She had been yelled at by Alex, Natalie, and Bosley.

Dylan knew it was only a matter of time before Charlie was informed, and then she would hear him, too, in his calm, never-changing tone - he would be disappointed in her.

Already, the Agency had received a call from Mary Briggs, threatening to pull them off the case, and threatening to expose them at the same time, as if she couldn't decide which would be worse, and was just waiting until she could think of a proper punishment.

She had lost the trust in her partners, her friends, her family.

But the nagging doubt in Dylan, the small ache that began to create a throat-sized lump that was now ever present and painful, refused to abandon her.

Her actions were automatic, fingers gently smudging eye shadow against the tip of her eyelid. It was darker than her normal, but it seemed to fit her mood. Lips, blood red.

Quietly, quickly, she ran over the evidence in her head.

The sniper wore black Doc Martins, used a Luger, and a knife in his killings.

He never shot in the head, indicating that this was personal.

He shot from a relatively close range, which would mean that he had to be very good at being invisible.

The Thin Man had been placed at each scene.

He wore black doc martins. He had been known to use a Luger and his weapon of choice was indeed a sword.

It fit. It did.

Hands pressed against her dresser, as Dylan looked in the mirror.

So what was wrong with the picture?

Exactly what she had told Alex. It was too easy.

The Thin Man was smart. Too smart for them. He, along with Eric Knox, had succeeded in not only fooling them, but repeatedly beating them at their own game that entire case.

The case involving HALO, he had known before they did that Emmers was after Max.

He had been one step ahead of them the whole time...

So why was he slipping up now? Leaving them trails to follow and clues the size of goldmines?

Why would someone attack Jason Gibbons at Annabeth's funeral - and yet not kill him?

Unless someone was trying to spark a suspicion into a reaction -

Unless someone was trying to frame Anthony.

"Holy shit," she whispered, staring into herself in the mirror. Now, everything inside her was alive, processing and whirling - smallest instances that easily formed one big conspiracy theory in her head-

All brought down by one memory of a mute man whispering, "No" against her lips.

"Dylan," she told herself, mustering as much self-recrimination and anger as she could muster, "You're reaching."

Dylan had never been one to trust the government, but she was certainly not a conspiracy nut.

For once, Dylan ignored her instinct.

Her fingers hesitated over the lighter. She almost didn't want to touch it. The silver case shone in the candlelight, and his imprints, smudged and stained with her own,

Instinct took hold, and then she reached, fast, for the lighter, jamming it into her pocket and moving toward the door.

It was time to betray someone.

Yippee.

--

Dylan drove.

Natalie remained uncharacteristically quiet beside her, snapping and unsnapping handcuffs that she had brought along for the case.

It was a gesture she wasn't sure either appreciated. The handcuffs were a signal to Dylan - they were going to try to take him alive, and to Alex - a sign that Natalie would back her on her decision to go after their number one suspect.

It was Natalie's unspoken compromise, a last ditch effort to try to find a way to meet both her friend's stances - bring everyone together so they could once again be the world's most elite crime fighting team - not the strangers that sat quietly.

Dylan's point was clear - she wasn't sure. If Dylan wasn't sure, she stood her ground. Proof was never overrated; it was one of the things that she and Alex had in common. Natalie was the dreamer. She was the astrological champion, not Dylan, not Alex. She believed in destiny and had been jokingly ridiculed about it more than once.

How her two logic based friends could come to two very different conclusions regarding one man was still something Natalie couldn't wrap her brain around.

Dylan wasn't sure - Alex was. The silence in the car could have been attributed to the two women thinking, more than likely about the males in their lives, but Natalie knew Dylan, and she knew Alex.

Something was wrong.

Angels were Angels, however, and Dylan proved it when she slid Natalie's car into the curb.

"Here," she said with a curt snap, pushing up the gear, and turning the ignition. At Natalie's questioning glance, she motioned. "Top floor."

"Classy," Alex muttered.

"Okay," Natalie said softly, eyes on the top floor. "The plan is capture. That's all. Alex?"

Alex hesitated, hand hovering over the door handle. Almond eyes grew darker, but when they slid in Dylan's direction, she swallowed hard. "Fine," she answered. "But if he tries to kill me, I'm giving as good as I get."

Natalie gave a long, anxious sigh. "Dylan?"

"Fine," she said, voice a flat monotone. After a beat, her glare softened, and in almost normal tone of voice, she continued. "Look, at least let me go first. See if maybe-"

"I don't trust him, Dylan," Natalie said firmly. "You can go ahead, but you're not going in there alone. I remember when he tried to kill us and watched you get shot out a window."

Dylan's hands clenched harder around the steering wheel, gaze some distant place that Alex and Natalie were not invited to.

"Point taken," she whispered finally.

It would be a piece of cake. Not even the Thin Man could take all three of them. One by one, maybe, but when the three fought together, it was always win-win. They knew each other's moves, the strengths, the weaknesses. They knew it all.

They were unstoppable when they were together.

Blowing out a shaky breath, nevertheless, Natalie couldn't stop the curious pound of her heartbeat as she smiled quickly, hooking handcuffs on her belt.

"Let's go."

--

There were certain things that Dylan Sanders just knew.

She knew that every Saturday morning, Pete and Natalie could be seen jogging alongside the ocean's edge, a happy Spike playing in the waves, galloping back toward them only to jump away again.

She knew that every Monday, Alex would bring in a basket of 'goodies', all smiles and expectations as she handed out whatever god-awful pastry she had decided to try this time.

They were getting better.

She knew that every morning, barring the end of the world or another equally severe crisis, she would sit beside Natalie and Alex, smile and say with as much cheer and happiness that she could muster, "Good Morning, Charlie!"

She knew that the Thin Man - aka Anthony - killer and assassin, would rather die that be taken alive. She knew that he was capable of killing if he was cornered - and that Alex and Natalie were no exceptions.

She knew that Alex was desperately, painfully in love with Jason, and as a result, would not mind taking out the Thin Man if it came to it.

And she knew that if they were wrong - if they were just the slightest bit wrong- then the killer would still be loose.

It was a chaotic maelstrom of feelings and emotions that swirled through her as she marked the position on the last stair.

Her body seemed to move on pure instinct, step by step, toward the Thin Man's door.

Her mind continued to whirl - flying winds of pure emotion - and yet - her heart was curiously numb.

When she rapped on the door, she waited, the metal of the medallion a heavy, warm weight against her chest. She felt it's presence acutely as the door slowly, carefully opened.

In the blue eyes of a killer there was a spark of something else, a light in his face that she had never seen before, as the door opened wider, and a long, elegant palm reached forward, skimming her face.

"Hi," she said.

The whisper of a word seemed to pacify the beast, as he stepped closer, and closer still, knuckles now caressing her cheek, hawk eyes looking down on her as a predator, suddenly deciding to play with its food - and not kill it.

Natalie and Alex were almost forgotten, as he slid a finger into her jeans, closed around her lighter, and pulled it out.

"Yeah, you found it," she said. "Where?"

He craned his neck, as if struggling to remember, and without another word, let her go, pulling another cigarette and using her lighter, lighting it in a way she had never seen him to before.

Never seen him do before.

Never seen HIM do before.

A ghost of her past screamed in her mind.

_I'd recognize that arse anywhere, you piece of shit!_

"Oh, God - Seamus," she whispered.

Anthony stared her down, smoke pillowing against her face as he tangled fingers in her hair.

"NOW!"

The cries behind her suddenly resulted in one of her own. "NO!" she yelled, turning suddenly, arms out-stretched as a blonde and a brunette moved with almost inhuman speed at the door - at Anthony.

It was too late. Already, he was moving back, crouching low as he watched the three Angels - Natalie and Alex in their fighting positions, Dylan stranded between them.

The poise stunk of betrayal.

Dylan could read the accusation in his eyes - the rage filtered over her features, as his mouth opened, and a wordless screech of anger surged from his lips.

Quickly, his gaze shifted to the swords on the wall.

"No," Dylan whispered, "No."

There were too many questions - too many lies, and the truth was there, it was with him.

He knew what was happening.

But he wasn't telling.

Before she could move, her teammates moved forward, one in a long, carefully calculated flip, another with a slide, heels directed toward his kneecap. He saw it coming, twisting almost like a pretzel as he jumped, heel catching Alex in the chin, only to be caught in the chest by Natalie's foot.

The force behind the blow was powerful. He landed with a crash against his dresser, cracking wood, and spilling socks.

Alex recovered from his hit, sweeping under until she was up on one knee, fists locked in a fighting stance as Natalie moved in beside her.

"Okay, Creepy Thin Man," Natalie said breathlessly. "You can make this easy or you can make it hard."

He was visibly shaking, veins popping from his face as if it would burst at any moment. The red mottled his features, mouth opening in a soundless hiss.

With a roll, he slipped past Alex, launching from a handspring to catch a sword from the wall, pointing the deadly blade in their direction.

"Okay," Alex said, almost unheard under her breath. "Hard."

Dylan found herself helpless as the Thin Man, Anthony, soon tangled with the Angels, blade swishing through the air, glinting as the sun caught the metal. Natalie and Alex fought seamlessly, but not without effort.

"Dylan!"

Natalie's cry broke her, and without another word Dylan hiccuped, nodding helplessly before running to the wall, grabbing one cane, stripping the wood and moving toward the melee.

He screeched, whipping the blade to meet hers with a resounding crack.

She kept the posture, breathing now, panting as the blades crossed.

He froze. Confusion mottled his features, clouding his face until it resembled something human. Blue eyes gazed into hers, and the blade wavered.

"HIYA!"

Alex broke the moment with a sidekick aimed directly into his ribs.

The blade fell away, suddenly swinging in Alex's direction. The Angel barely managed to avoid the swish, falling back, only to be caught by Natalie, who pushed her back up, until the three women were side-by-side.

"He's going for the kill," Natalie whispered breathlessly.

"Because we made him," Dylan ground, hand clutching his blade. "We never gave him a choice."

Another screech, another lunge, and without thinking, Dylan's hand caught Alex's, pulling her in her momentum. Bending over, she felt the weight of the other girl sliding over her back.

With a jolt up, she once again deflected the blade, striking up with hers, a short powerful jolt that he returned just as quickly.

He continued to charge, and sweating now, Dylan struggled to keep up, sweeping under just as his blade licked her heel, flipping over it to return to her friends' side.

"NOW!" Natalie ground, and Alex and she launched forward, reaching for the plush white sheet she had slept on only a day before, rushing with it just as he thrust.

The sword tangled, tore, and suddenly he lost the grip.

Dylan's throat was dry, breathing was next to impossible, and with a soundless heave she watched the blade circle in the air, into Alex's waiting hands.

The cool, passive face displayed by her friend was mimicked only by the cold glint that appeared in Anthony's.

Natalie's kick he blocked, but the sword that Alex now possessed nicked him.

The cut slowly began to seep on his palm, but he paid no attention to it.

The handcuffs on Natalie's hips were forgotten, and Alex's swishes, and lunges were anything but passive.

One way or another - this was going to end with Anthony dead.

He would never let them take him any other way - and he was fighting to kill.

Dylan's desperation resulted in a clamor for chaos that began to pound in her ears. Her blood was rushing so furiously, she felt near a heart attack. The truth, the absolution to the instinct that had haunted her, was so close...

In her pocket, was the proof that only she would take as such. Natalie wouldn't see it, Alex wouldn't see it... but it was clear to her.

He knew. Anthony knew.

Logic had fallen to the wayside. Dylan had to let it go. With logic, with feeling, she never would have done what possessed her now.

--

Alex's arm was beginning to ache. Already, the Thin Man's blood had spilled over her fingers, but she kept moving.

Natalie's lithe, powerful form kept up, and between them, they were getting closer.

He kicked at the sword, deflecting the blade, before another swivel and a jump kick catch Natalie on the thigh, forcing her to her knees.

Where was Dylan?!

"DYLAN!" she snapped. And then she found her moment, the Thin Man distracted, a window just above his waist, and under his ribs.

Without hesitation, she snapped the blade forward.

It caught another blade with a clang.

Breathless, Alex froze, body stiff with shock as Dylan, now standing in front of the Thin Man, swiveled the blade away, dropping her sword from her hand, dropping into an easy stance.

Natalie, rising from her crouch, held wide eyes. "Dylan-"

"I'm sorry," she whispered, eyes a dark jade.

The Thin Man himself was unsure what to make of it. His eyes darted from the blade to Dylan, from Dylan to Alex.

And Alex could think of nothing, could focus on nothing but the blade, Dylan's hand, Dylan's form. In a second, she knew.

"Dylan," she said, aching now. "Please, don't-"

"I have to," she said, hard, broken. "I'm sorry."

"Dylan," Natalie began. Clearly, she still did not understand, couldn't make this make sense.

"I love you guys," she said. The Thin Man stood, prim, proper, a feral Dr. Jekyll with the Hyde just spilling over. "And I'm going to get what you need. I need him to do it."

"What does he have that we don't?" Natalie pleaded.

The blade wavered, and Dylan, as if her time were running out, only gave a sad smile. "Proof."

The windows splintered, fragments spilled, and Alex was forced to cover her face to keep the shards from splintering into it.

Natalie cried out for Dylan, and Alex, battling a throat-sized lump that made it impossible to breathe, surged toward the broken window.

She could have jumped after her, caught Dylan and the Thin Man before they made it past the block, talked sense into Dylan-

But there was nothing but darkness, and that dark stench of betrayal left in Dylan's wake.

**End chapter**


	8. Chapter Eight: Love Thy Enemy

**Chapter Eight: Love Thy Enemy**

Dylan didn't want to think.

Thoughts, feelings, emotions, they all came at her, flooding her brain, and speeding her pulse with the urge to panic.

She bottled them down. If she slowed down, even for a second, the ramifications of what she had done would drown her.

Alex... Natalie... Charlie...

In the darkest corner, ten blocks from his flat, he finally came at her.

He wasn't winded like she was from the sprint. When she collapsed against the brick wall, and finally fell to her knees in an angered sob, he gave her no mercy.

Instead the Thin Man glared at her with crystal blue eyes, mouth creased in a thin, angry line.

Leaning forward, face in her hands, shaking uncontrollably, Dylan's world came down around her. Flashes of her life, of what it had been, and how it would never be again consumed her, and her reality now existed in nothing but a silent killer whose cold, calculating eyes simmered her blood.

Fingers closed around her biceps too quickly for her to be ready, and with an iron grip, he slammed her against the wall. Her head pounded against the brick, sending a jolt of pain that spread from her skull.

Dizzy from the pain, she focused only on the face, passive, bewildered, angry. His fingers dug in further, cutting into her skin, almost as if they were blades attached to each.

Anthony, with his ambiguous morals, his hawk-like features, observing her as one would a lab rat, rough and angry, and seething at the edges.

Fuck him.

Without a word, Dylan twisted, wedging her knee between them, and arching her back against the brick. His fingers tightened, but her free leg was already moving, booted foot slamming into his chest, powerful limbs thrusting him back.

"No," she bit.

He jabbed, palm splayed in a knife lunge, and she blocked it easily, hand closing over the wrist, and sweeping under, cutting into his face with her elbow. The anger made it easier somehow, as her ribs screamed, but her mind screamed louder, He swung a fist, and she blocked it. Another swing, she ducked under. The frustration, now boiling over, gave her the strength, and in a quick flurry of hand work, she had him moving to the wall.

With a shove, one fist around his hands, the other palm spread out to keep her bodyweight against him, she had him pinned.

"STOP IT," she hissed. He fought, she shoved again, harder. "STOP IT. CALM DOWN."

He was shaking, face a mottled pink.

"Listen," she said, speaking in a tone that was hard and fast, loud enough to be heard over the blood rushing in her veins. "We don't have time for this. Natalie and Alex will pick up our scent as soon as they get over the shock, and they'll find us. So you get over it, and help me, or I let them have you."

Eyes narrowed in slits, the Thin Man observed her, almost as if she was the one being pinned. His attention slowly moved to her fists, holding him still. Without a word, he suddenly relaxed, perfect posture easing as the taught muscles in his arms stopped pushing.

Dylan felt the sudden absence of pressure. He now seemed perfectly composed, gazing at her as if her pinning him was an inconvenience and nothing more. The only sign of his recent bout of anger were his bangs, now hanging loosely over his forehead, released from their gel, and making him look like a mischievous little boy.

With a sigh, Dylan eased back the pressure, untangling fingers. "Thank you," she said finally.

He took in a too heavy breath response, taking advantage of his sudden freedom to straighten his cuffs, pulling down on the suit blazer.

Dylan pursed her lips, studying the act. He was angry, bewildered and confused on her account.

Gently, she brushed the errant bangs away from his face, smoothing them over his scalp. The intimate gesture startled him. Once again, Dylan was reminded of a wounded dog, bristling under her touch, unsure whether to lean into it, or bite her hand off.

But he allowed it. She rubbed with both hands, skimming through the fine black strands. But the damage had been done. His hair only swung back into his face, and the expression he gave her, almost a 'You see?' look, would have been amusing in another circumstance.

"Sorry," she said.

His gaze narrowed, and when his eyes moved suspiciously to her own damp tresses, she groaned slightly.

"Shit, right. Hair fetish. Look, let's just get this over with." Pulling a knife from her belt, Dylan reached for the nape of her neck, picking out a small lock of reddish hair. Snapping the blade, she sawed it.

With an arched eyebrow, she deposited the hair in his hand.

"Sniff away," she said, knife going back into the belt. "But that's the last one you're getting."

Slowly, deliberately, he slid the lock against his face, eyes closing with a silent sigh.

Dylan watched with a disbelieving glare. "Wanna wait on that orgasm?" she quipped. "Kinda still here."

A rock shifting in the distance broke her focus, and immediately, the world came back.

"Come on," she whispered. "You know who's behind the murders. You're going to help me get them. And we're doing it before he kills someone else. You got it?"

Hand plastering the hair against his face, he never gave an inclination he had heard her. But his eyes were on her, watching her every move.

"I'll take that as a yes," she answered quickly. "We have to get out of here. Chances are they'll go back to Charlie before they come back - but thanks to our little scuffle, and the fact that Natalie's nose isn't normal, they'll be after us soon."

It may have been taking things a little for granted that he would follow, but she expected it.

She was no more than two feet away, when she heard a whispered, hesitating, almost painful, "Why?"

Dylan's eyes closed, breathing sucking slightly, before she turned, offering him a shrug.

"You tell me."

--

"And here I was thinking things couldn't get any worse."

The statement came from Bosley, currently slouched on the corner of the desk, arms crossed, face creased with utter despair.

Natalie didn't feel much better.

Despite what others thought, much of the reason why Natalie always seemed so utterly carefree was that fact that, no matter what happened to her in their dangerous lives, she always knew that Dylan and Alex would be there to back her up.

Tonight, the unthinkable had happened, and she wondered whether she should have blamed herself.

Sighing helplessly, she turned to Alex, reaching for her palm. "Maybe if we had listened to her, talked to her and heard her out, she wouldn't have-"

"Alex, Natalie, it's no use looking back to the past," Charlie said, voice grave from the speakerbox. "It's not going to change what's happened. I advise we simply attempt to figure out how it happened, and move on."

"Dylan ain't no traitor," Bosley spoke up, pushing off the desk, eyeing the couch that just seemed much too large with just Natalie and Alex sitting on it. "She went rogue, then she must have had a reason."

"It's my fault," Alex said quickly. When everyone glanced at her questionably, she continued, "We had a fight. I ... accused her or something. I lost control of myself-"

"A fight takes two people, Alex," Charlie said. "But if you and Dylan disagreed about the mission that much, it should have been brought up."

"I'm sorry, Charlie," Natalie said. Her eyes stung, heart stuck in an odd place. It was as if the shock had yet to wear off. Still, the image of Dylan holding a sword to their hearts stuck with her.

"Angels, we have to move on from this," Charlie continued. "I don't need to tell you we don't have much time left. Mary Briggs is threatening to leak the story by tonight, and with Dylan gone-"

"She's confused," Natalie interrupted. "She thinks he's innocent, and she's out to prove it."

"I don't trust him," Alex clipped. "You saw him in there. He would have killed us."

Natalie frowned. "But the way he acted with Dylan-"

"Doesn't make him any less a murderer," Alex finished. "You know that."

Natalie shuddered, eyes closing with a conflicting gulp.

"Okay. If we can get to her, get them separated, talk some sense into Dylan and take him down, we may have a chance to nab him before he can strike again."

"I dunno, girls. It might be harder than you think." Bosley, lost in thought, scratched at the pile of hair on his head, tugging on his earring thoughtfully.

Shooting a glance at each other, Natalie and Alex both remained quiet.

"Bosley? What do you mean?" Charlie asked.

Shrugging, he pointed at the two girls. "Ya'll are good, but you're used to fighting in threes. With Dylan gone, that's like losing one third of your brains ... not that you can't handle it, but-"

"It's that much harder," Natalie agreed.

"Now, Dylan ... she's kinda been an independent from the beginning. That girl's scrappy, and couple that with the Thin Man's evilness? It's like Bonnie and Clyde on speed."

The analogy may have been farfetched, but it was certainly had a ring of truth into it.

With grim determination, Natalie rubbed at her palms. "We'll do what we have to."

"I just wish we didn't have to," Alex whispered.

Natalie glanced over. Alex's concern, what most would mistake for passive apathy, was prevalent. Her hand moved over hers, squeezing lightly. Alex, almond eyes moist, gave her a worried glance.

"If it gets out of hand, we will eventually have to alert the LAPD," Charlie said gravely.

Natalie looked up quickly, a jolt of panic sliding into her throat. "We can't bring in the LAPD now, with Dylan involved-"

"Everyone makes choices, Angels," Charlie said firmly. His tone softened when he continued with, "Dylan made hers."

The ramifications of that, Natalie didn't even want to consider. One look in Alex's direction told her she was thinking the same thing.

"We have to find her," Alex said finally. "We find Dylan, we find the Thin Man."

"Right," Natalie agreed. "And time is running out."

--

"Mr. Gibbons?"

Mary Briggs clearly startled Jason Gibbons. The actor was lying back on the bed, bare-chested, a bandage wrapped around his torso, staring listlessly at the television.

Looking at her, he gave her a curious nod.

"Yeah," he answered. "Who're you?"

He was extraordinarily handsome. Mary had gotten over her starstruck stage two months after she came to Hollywood, when she busted a pornography ring that implicated more than a few A-list actors.

The cover-up had been Mary's loss of innocence. She wondered if she ever recovered.

"I'm Mary Briggs, with the LAPD," she said finally, flashing him a badge as she stepped into the room. "I was hoping I could ask you a few questions."

Jason frowned. "I already told the police everything I knew, which is pretty much nothing. One minute I was walking, the next I got shot. I didn't see anything."

"It's not about the shooting," Mary said gently. "And I'm glad you're okay."

"Yeah," Jason agreed, settling back against his bed with a wince. "I guess I came out better than Annabeth or Sandy. You planning on finding this guy anytime soon?"

Mary grimaced. "We're working on it." She moved into a chair, scooting it closer to the bed. "Mr. Gibbons, if you could... I understand that you were involved for some time with Alex Munday."

The name definitely produced a reaction. Immediately, his eyes narrowed, hands clutching into defensive fists. "What about Alex?"

"I was hoping you would answer-"

"She's not in any trouble, is she?"

"Not yet," Mary said. "Your cooperation may become very helpful in that."

Jason Gibbon's shut his mouth defiantly.

Mary frowned. Looking at her notes, she tried again. "What about a Natalie Cook?" His eyes narrowed. "Dylan Sanders?"

His frown deepened, but the actor didn't say a word.

"Look ... they were placed at two of the shootings. One of them has been implicated as being involved with our suspect. If you could just-"

"Alex, Dylan and Nat are my friends," Jason groused. "And if you're going to mess with them, you better let them know. Whatever you're trying to pull, they're better at it then you." Mary blinked, but he kept going. "Now if you have any other questions, talk to my publicist. His cards are on the table."

She glanced over at the neat pile of white cards. Jason turned back to the television, turning up the volume, reaching towards the monitor with a remote.

Mary got the abrupt feeling of dismissal.

Sighing, she pushed off the chair, closing her notepad with a tap. "Thanks," she said dryly. "You've been a big help."

Turning in the doorway, Mary's steps faltered. Alex Munday, dark eyes glowering, and black hair falling perfectly around her shoulders, stood waiting.

She had heard the whole thing.

Resigned, Mary ventured a short smile. "Ms. Munday."

"Ms. Briggs," Alex said, crossing her arms to regard her summarily. "Get your answers?"

Mary grinned slightly. "I don't discourage easily."

"I wasn't aware we were suspects," Alex snapped.

Mary shrugged. "You weren't, until one of your little Angels went missing."

"It would be pointless to ask you how you knew that," Alex said crisply.

"You're not the only one good at their job."

"Maybe if you spent less time obsessing about us, and more time looking for the killer, you might actually get somewhere."

"Like you are?" Alex's frown deepened, but she said nothing in response. Mary gave a gallant wave to the door. "Your witness."

"No further questions," Alex replied easily. "I just got all I needed to know."

The small Asian women had a strong frame, lean and sexy. It was everything Mary wasn't. Extraordinary, beautiful. Her looks, she heard, were only rivaled by her intelligence.

And they were all like that.

They were younger, richer, smarter, prettier. With dedicated boyfriends like A-list actor Jason Gibbons.

She shouldn't have been intimidated.

Mary was an accomplished woman. She may have relied on her gun a little too much, but she could hold her own in the LAPD boys club.

But she gave something away, when she broke the glance first.

Pushing around Alex, Mary blew out an uneasy breath, realizing her heart had stuttered into an erratic beat.

Suddenly, she was glad there was only one present, not the three together.

Walking away from the Angel, Mary had the crazy feeling she had just lost something of an edge over the woman.

--

Dylan had calculated her time as a matter of hours.

Now, she hoped that Natalie and Alex's predictability did not fail her.

She guessed, after the initial shock, the meeting with Charlie, and the chance to regroup and formulate a plan to take her and the Thin Man down without hurting either, would take about five, six hours, at the least.

That was barring any costume changes, the compensating for her loss, and the actual figuring out where they were.

They knew that Dylan, not being stupid, would never go back to her bungalow.

So she did exactly that.

It had taken some effort to sneak into the elusive hotel without being seen, and coupled with the fear that Natalie and Alex, double-guessing her, would be right there waiting, had left a nervous jerkiness to it all.

But when she finally opened the door, only the messy darkness of her home greeted her.

Now, pulling a simple black top over her head, buttoning the tight blue jeans, and with a tinge of guilt, slipping on Alex's boots, she felt more or less herself.

She was fully stocked on medical supplies, thank goodness, and for once she was glad that her ribs had settled into a dull ache.

Gauze in hand, she pushed at the door, moving from the bathroom and into her living room/bedroom.

Even now, she wasn't sure she would ever be calm about the fact that the Creepy Thin Man was standing in her room silently, hand loosely holding onto his deadly cane, staring about it as if he were caught in a trap.

Taking a breath, she stepped forward, clearing her throat.

"Come on," she said crisply, motioning to the bed. "We don't have much time." When he only stared, she motioned again. "On the bed."

He considered. With the ease of a big cat, he moved toward the bed, settling onto it gracefully.

The Thin Man. On her bed.

Shuddering, Dylan forced a smile, moving forward and putting her things down on the bed.

Standing on the edge, she motioned him to her, unrolling the gauze. "Take off the blazer and the shirt." Again he simply stared. "Hello? Now!"

He glared.

"Humor me?"

Apparently, he was still pissed about that whole 'trying to kill him' thing.

Coming forward, he knelt on the edge of the bed, gaze defiant.

Losing patience, Dylan went for the blazer. "Fine," she muttered. "You want to act like a baby?" With nimble fingers, she unbuttoned the blazer, pushing it off his shoulders with a rough shove. He arched an eyebrow, as if amused by her frustration. Snorting at him, Dylan slid her fingers into the buttons of his shirt, opening it to reveal the lean, trim chest, most of it obscured by the bandage over his torso and over his left shoulder.

He had surprisingly smooth skin, hairless where she smoothed her fingers over it, broad shoulders, and muscles that jolted when she slid her palms over them. The shirt, silk, fluttered down his arms, and he actually helped this time, pulling hands out of sleeves.

Bare-chested, he eased down, legs brushing her thighs as he leaned on the edge of the bed. Taller than she, he was now her height, palms resting lighting on her sides, knees almost pushing on her hips, enveloping her.

Crotch seemed perfectly lined with hers, and despite the air conditioner, Dylan found her throat drying, body tempature rising.

Without a word, she shrugged off her leather jacket, tossing it on the bed behind him.

'He's the Thin Man, Dylan', she snarled at herself. 'Stop it.'

Soon, she was absorbed in her task, meticulous as she uncovered the healing wound, discovering a bloody scab that was just millimeters away from his heart.

"You really are a lucky bastard," she told him. He said nothing, face conveying no emotion as he watched her work, almost as if he weren't even a part of it.

Still, when she moved against his shoulder lightly, he obediently shifted. When she pushed at his wound, in an act that would have made her hiss in pain, he did nothing.

"Gotta say," she said after a minute. "You're definitely the best patient I've ever had."

Slowly, without a word, he began to rub his thumb along her sleeve.

Licking her lips, she allowed it.

"Okay," she said finally. "Question time. Do you know who's behind this?"

He kept rhythmically rubbing at her sleeve, feeling the fabric of her shirt between his fingertips.

"What does Seamus have to do with it?" she asked.

He unbuttoned her cuff, smoothing a digit just under her wrist to the sensitve skin along her vein.

Her breath caught.

Moving back, she jerked her hand away, reaching for more guaze.

"Lift," she told him.

He did, and she rolled it around him, cheek just brushing his warmer than normal skin, nipple of his chest poking into her skin temptingly.

Fuck.

"Anthony, you have to give me something," she said, tone husky and just a little bit angry. "I'm going out on a limb for you, and you can't expect me to figure this out on my own with you along for the ride like some glorified rottweiler."

Yes, she had just compared him to a dog. It was easy to do. Spike didn't give her has as much trouble as he did, and at least the dog gave her a nice big lick when she had emotional problems.

Again, he gave her no indication that he had heard the insult.

Instead, all his focus and determination seemed to reside on her body.

Intense energy seemed to go into discovering her arms, the length and shape of them. His fingers, thorough in their examination, moved to her shoulders, massaging with such a gentle touch it felt foreign. His lips broke in an unspoken sigh as his eyes closed, breathing in deeply in that 'better-than-sex' whisper of breath he seemed to be so good at.

It went right through her. From her head, through her heart, a tremor below her stomach and ending with a tingle in her toes, she shuddered as the fingers still holding gauze crinkled against the velvet of his skin, scratching into him.

It was when he began to rub under her arms, just on the outsides of her over-sensitized breasts, that Dylan finally woke up.

"What the hell are you doing?!" she snapped, smacking him as she stepped back a startled step. "I'm trying to get you off for murder and you're just... trying to get me off!"

He remained seated, not quite contrite as his gaze moved from her feet to her eyes.

"Just... WHY do you like me?!" she snapped. "You don't know me. You had no problem with trying to kill me just a few years ago ... so what changed?" Coming forward again, she shoved at him, a not gentle push that still didn't move him more than a few inches. "Why didn't you start obsessing about Alex? Or Natalie? At least maybe they would have had the sense to kick your ass when you decided to start making out!"

The rant over, Dylan was left a huffing, puffy, red-in-the-face mess, and it was not attractive, she knew.

He continued to observe her, managing to make her look like the silly embarrassment despite the fact that he was the one splayed out on the bed half naked with a hole in his chest.

"Answer me!" she finally pleaded.

The Thin Man spoke, but only on limited occasions, and usually monosyllables. She knew it was too much to hope for to venture something from him.

But what he did astounded her.

Fishing a notebook from her backpack, he reached into his pocket. Pulling out a Montblac pen, he studied the white pages, and finally wrote quickly.

With a gallant flourish, he presented it to her.

With surprised anticipation, she took it, turning it to her viewing the meticulously formed letters.

_The victims are all extraordinary._

She frowned, licking her lips as she nodded. "Yeah. So?"

The gesture he returned was an arched eyebrow, muscle ticking in an expression a school teacher would made if she had just given an incredibly dumb answer.

He motioned for the pad, and wrote with deliberate strokes, underlining his words with a sharp slash.

He gave it back to her, motioning to the words.

"You are extraordinary," she read. He didn't look as if he had just given her a compliment, just a fact that he would have rather not admitted. "That's it?" she asked, disbelief making her snap her words. "That's all you're giving me? Anthony, what about Seamus? I need you to tell me who the killer is!"

He shook his head, obviously frustrated with her lack of patience. Snatching at the pad, he wrote again.

_It's not enough._

"What's not, Obi-Wan?" Dylan sighed, rubbing fingers into her hair, noticing with growing aggravation that his eyes followed each and every strand. Pulling her hands from her hair, she finally went for a last ditch effort. "Tell me who the killer is," she whispered, "And I'll let you yank a lock."

His body didn't move, but his face twitched, moving from her hair, to her face.

Finally, he opened his mouth, licking his lips, and coughing, trying to get his voice back.

It was slow, small, barely able to be heard.

"Death."

_END CHAPTER_


	9. Chapter Nine: Cheap Shots

**CHAPTER NINE: CHEAP SHOTS**

Alex had to admit: Natalie had made a compelling argument. Dylan was currently out there – using everything she knew they knew about her and themselves in order to keep them from finding her.

That meant that she was playing on their predictability – just like, Natalie argued, they were playing on hers.

Of course – the whole big mind job depended on that very idea that Dylan was, more or less, predictable.

Alex never thought that was the case. If yesterday's events didn't more than destroy that theory, the fact that Dylan had managed to hide her real name, her identity, and her past from her best friends for the better part of eight years certainly gave it less credence.

As a result, despite Natalie's assurances that Dylan would eventually find herself back to the Thin Man's lair ('It's completely Dylan!' Natalie said. 'She would never think we'd go back there!'), Alex wasn't at all surprised when she pushed open the door carefully and found only the windblown remnants of an apartment torn apart by a brawl.

"I didn't think we were this messy," she commented, hand on the doorknob as Natalie walked in around her, face falling in lost hope as her heels made hollow clicks on the wooden floor.

"Maybe we should have tried the bungalow," Natalie said, fingering the bedspread carefully.

Alex considered, and slowly shook her head no. "Even if she did manage to sneak her way in past the guards and valets we tipped off-"

"-and she could," Natalie noted.

"-she would have used the time that we told Charlie and regrouped to get over there." Raising her wrist to eyelevel, Alex noted the ticks of her clock. "She'd be long gone by now."

"She double-guessed us," Natalie whispered, lost between a sad laugh, and a choked chortle.

Alex swallowed hard, ignoring the emerging lump in her throat before closing the door behind her. "We might as well look around," Alex said. "There has to be something here that can tie him to the murders."

"Sure," Natalie agreed, obediently settling down on her haunches and raising the bedspread.

Alex didn't move, gaze roving over the room of the murderer who had stolen her best friend from her. In truth, Alex didn't hate much. She never really wasted the time. There was too much to experience without hate clouding everything inside of you. As the product of a mixed marriage, Alex had one or two experiences with racism, to her the ugliest form of it.

And yet, even when coolly remembering the hurt that came with it, Alex still could honestly say she was dangerously close to hating the Thin Man.

She didn't like him. She didn't understand him. He had almost stolen Jason and now, he had turned Dylan against them.

"So... any thoughts on how Mary Briggs managed to find out about Dylan almost before we told Charlie?" Natalie said, voice muffled as she stretched under the bed.

Alex slowly shook her head no, stepping forward deliberately, eyes now on the closet.

"No," she answered. "But I'm going to find out. I'll check the tapes later, see who Mary's been talking to."

Natalie shoved the mattress off the frame, pausing a moment to wipe the bangs off her forehead. "This is really bad, Alex," she said matter-of-factly. "If we don't find them, then Dylan could eventually be charged with hiding a felon-"

"Or worse, an accomplice," Alex added grimly. Her eyes locked onto something in the darkness of the closet, and without preamble she pulled out a pair of Doc Martins. Natalie's eyes flashed at the sight. With a sigh, Alex dropped them on the floor, the soles hitting the wood with a loud thump. "Why do I feel like this is the end of the Angels?"

"We've been through tougher things," Natalie said, giving up on the mattress in favor of the dresser.

"Yes. We. As in three of us."

Natalie froze, hand in currently immersed in a drawer full of clean white socks. Her glance was filtered with sadness.

"I know," she answered.

The emotion was quickly starting to overwhelm. With a shuddering sigh, Alex moved back toward the closet, feeling carefully at its sides.

"Wait. Found something," Natalie called.

The blonde began sorting through a packet, spilling the contents on the unmade bed. Settling down beside her, Alex started pawing through.

Natalie's sky blue eyes darkened, frown forming on her lips as she began to hand what she held over.

"There. Me. You. Dylan-" One by one, Alex took the pictures as Natalie kept sorting. "Mary Briggs. Annabeth Torres, Jason-"

Jason smiled eagerly at her from his headshot. The fragile state of Alex's heart froze slowly, giving way to a blessed numbness that seemed much easier to bear than her previous turmoil.

"Still don't think he's our guy?" Alex said flatly.

Natalie took in a breath, damning evidence of the Thin Man's priorities in her fingertips.

"We have to find Dylan," she whispered shakily.

--

Dylan was certifiably insane.

She had to be. This was a really stupid, last ditch plan, and certainly not what she had in mind.

Anthony wasn't a big fan of it either. He skulked on his end of his car, staring at her like she was holding him captive, fingers gripping tight on the door handle.

Though that could have been from her driving.

"Please," she snapped when he shot his third indignant look at her hard right. "You once played chicken on a bridge with Natalie in a race car. And," she added with a mischievous smirk. "If I remember correctly, you lost."

He snorted, and only gripped all the harder.

Just another turn, and she was there.

The building that housed the lab wasn't as elaborately decorated as the home office. Charlie had decided that for the science they sometimes employed, simple was classier.

Still, it housed an elaborate forensics and ballistics laboratory that rivaled Quantico, and Dylan would find nothing better.

"Okay... this is what I've decided. You're no help at all. So new game plan." She pushed the gear shift into park, unbuckling her seat belt as she spoke. "It's obvious that if we're going to get 'Death', and thank you for that, it was ever-so-helpful."

He narrowed his eyes at her, jawline clamping.

He had stopped talking to her when he realized he wasn't going to get a lock of hair.

Dylan didn't mind. It wasn't like it made much difference.

"SO – first we're going to clear you. THEN we're going to get in touch with Nat and Alex, hope they don't kill you – and me," she added, "And work together to find Mr. Killer."

He wasn't a fan of the new game plan. His fingers twitched on the sword, bringing it closer to him.

"Look," she snapped. "If you hadn't been all murder-y and insane the first time we met, maybe they would have given you a chance. This is your fault."

If he were anymore angry, he would have stuck his tongue out at her.

"Stop sulking and get out of the car," she snapped.

He didn't move.

Dylan reached over, clicking open the seatbelt. "Let's go. NOW," she added for emphasis.

She had to admit – it was almost gratifying to see him grudgingly push open the door, staring at her as if he was imagining a hundred different ways to wipe the smirk off her face.

The Thin Man was a killer, and she never forgot what he was, but it was weird, to take his hand in hers, leading him like a lost child to the doorway, and fumbling with the keys.

"Retinal scanner," she explained. "And fingerprints. Let's hope they haven't locked me out."

Luck was certainly on her side. The doors opened on the first time, and with a smile, Dylan let herself in.

As the Thin Man walked in warily behind her, Dylan moved into the first room.

"Ballistics," she explained, motioned for him to close the door behind him as he entered. Dressed in a trademark suit and tie she had procured from a store along the way, he stood ramrod straight, carefully marking everything in the room with a cold stare.

Fleetingly, she wondered if he had a snapshot memory.

If they were ever enemies again, Dylan would be in trouble.

The moment of doubt made her tremor slightly, the precious lab and everything it meant to the Angels and Charlie made her waver.

But she had already let him in, there was nothing to do now but go forward.

Taking in a shaky breath, she pulled on a pair of plastic gloves, reaching for a hardened lump of clay.

"This is an imprint of the bullet that was in Annabelle," she explained. "I'm going to create a mold of it, and then compare it to..." she lingered, pawing through a file sorter, until she found what she was looking for."This," she finished. His eyes narrowed, focusing on the small bullet she was showing him. "Look familiar?" she asked.

He gave her a startled glance.

"It's a bullet I chinked out of the wall the first day we met. You know – with the shooting at us and pulling my hair? Good times." Dropping the bullet into a petri dish, she flicked on the computer. "I can test the abrasions, find out if both were fired from the same gun. If you're innocent," his gaze narrowed. "Then the result should be negative."

He gave her a slow jerk of a nod.

"Impressed yet?"

A long, elegant finger slowly slid along the counter, as the Thin Man finally began to explore.

Turning back to the computer, Dylan began to type quickly. "Alex and Natalie are better at this," she said, smile faltering. Her fingers rolled the bullet in her hands, gaze narrowing. "I mean, I'm good, but... they're actual doctors and everything. Alex is a certified genius." Unsure now if she was speaking to him, or simply rambling to herself, Dylan nevertheless kept going, tone going soft. "She's amazing. And Natalie's literally one IQ point away from being certified - and that was because she left the session early because she didn't want to miss the migration of the geese." Dylan smiled at the memory, picturing Natalie's ecstatic face as she told the story. "She's such a nut for animals. Was something like a nature mid-wife or something - would go all around the farms in her neighborhood delivering cows and stuff." Dylan's hand, suddenly shaking,

The bullet dropped with a clatter from her fingers, and broken from her haze, she scrambled to retrieve it, grabbed hold, putting it back on the dish.

The liquid steel, already set in the mold - presumably by Alex, was plucked out. A perfect cast.

"It's just..." Her vision was suddenly blurry, but Dylan dared not touch her eyes with the acrid plastic of the gloves. She blinked back the tears, voice going husky. "They're just so... extraordinary, and I'm ... I'm just... me. A high school dropout." Her eyes kept on the bullets, dropping the cast into the dish, and pushing it into the machine. "I don't know how I managed to stick with them for so long-"

Cool fingers sliding over her palm dried the words on her lips. With a startled gasp, Dylan discovered Anthony, clear, fervent gaze now solely directed on her, no more than six inches away.

For once, there was no glare on his face - nor was it like any other expression she had seen on his stone cold face.

His eyes seemed deeper than she had ever seen, and his hands, gentler than they had ever been.

Carefully, as if he were handling glass, his fingers wrapped around her wrist, pulling her to face him. With his free palm, he caressed her face, and mouth pursing, swiped at the lone tear that had managed to escape, drifting a lonely trail down her cheek.

Feeling the wetness between his fingertips, he stuck the digit in his mouth, tasting her salt. Breathless, Dylan's mouth dropped open, lips parting in scintillating anguish. Gaze drawn to it, Anthony delicately lay his wet finger on the bottom lush lip, rubbing the moisture gently.

She tasted her tears.

She had no idea what he was trying to tell her - there were no exact words, but his eyes, focused and predatory, seemed to have a life of his own.

Suddenly, she remembered a note, written in an elegant scrawl that had been handed to her earlier today.

_You__ are __extraordinary._

Almost unconsciously, her tongue darted out further, curling around his finger and just as quickly moving back in.

He remained perfectly still. His warmth enveloped her, and suddenly the click and whir of the machine, now deep in its testing, fell away until only the blood in her veins, pumping furiously into her heart, had even the slightest hope of being heard.

Knuckles caressing her chin, he closed the space between them, focused, intense gaze on her eyes, then her lips.

Shudders threatened to overtake her body, driven almost mad with anticipation, as his face came closer, ever closer still.

His breath was sinfully warm on her skin.

She kept her eyes open, even as her palm slid possessively against his hips, drawing him closer, even as his fingers tangled in their now familiar hold in her red tresses, she saw nothing but his lips, his eyes.

A sigh befell her when he moaned, low and feral. Her mouth opened, her head tilted, and there was the lightest brush - only the briefest caress of lips on lips-

-A slam ricocheted in the lab, and Dylan, ear drums shattered, and heart crashing in her chest, jerked her head to the doorway.

Charlie's Angels, minus one, stood in a fighting stance, staring at the scene, faces masked in disbelief.

"Dylan," Alex recovered first. "You should have known we would have tapped the laboratory."

Subtly pushing Anthony away from her, she stepped around him, fingers clamping to his hand. Once she was between him and her friends, she finally allowed herself to smile easily. "It's the best lab on the West Coast."

Only Natalie had no patience for the game. "Dylan, we need to talk."

Dylan swallowed hard. Anthony was openly frowning. His hand was tight on his cane, and the rigid posture behind her indicated he was ready for a fight.

From the look in Alex's eyes, so were they.

"I agree. We need to talk."

"I can't believe you brought him here," Alex whispered, eyes darting from the Thin Man to the lab. "God, Dylan!"

"Alex!" Natalie's voice was firm, pleading. Alex glanced back, and with effort, closed her mouth. Easing from her stance, Natalie's arms came down, wide and open. "Dylan, you have to listen-"

"Guys, I won't let you hurt him - I told you - I'm taking care of it. I just need the proof-"

"He's the GUY, Dylan!" Alex snapped. "It's not him getting hurt we're worried about!"

"Then if I'm with him - he can't hurt anyone else, can he?" Dylan answered, slow and enunciated. Her palms behind her, she kept the Thin Man still. Softly, she could hear him seethe - deep breaths in and out that pushed his chest against her back.

Natalie shook her head slowly, obviously lost for words.

Alex had her own. "Dylan, we have to hold him. You know that. It's nothing personal-"

"Oh, bullshit it's nothing personal, Alex," Dylan snapped. "It's totally personal, and you know it."

Alex swallowed, face going increasingly red - a visible sign she was struggling to keep her temper in check. "Let us take him," she said through gritted teeth, "And we'll HELP YOU."

Natalie tried one more time. "Dylan, we have proof!"

And then the world fell apart.

It began with a simple motion. Natalie reaching for her pocket, so quick and so fast it startled the wild man behind her.

The scream froze them all, battering her ear drums before Anthony flipped over her - sword out of its cane and swiping down at Natalie.

"NO!"

Alex kicked up, burying her heel into his stomach, diverting his flight to crash against the lab table in the right corner. Glasses and beakers shattered, and instinctively, Dylan shot forward.

Alex's fingers were just pulling on the Thin Man's wrist when Dylan's fist closed over them, twisting them out of the way. Immediately Alex jerked back, sending a punch with her first, another with her right. Dylan blocked them, slipping on broken glass as Alex's fast, powerful thrusts came at her.

The crash of a table overturning alerted her to another fight - one that had broken out between Natalie and Anthony.

Natalie was breathing easily, face screwed in concentration as she ducked and swirled, twisted and kicked, moving away from Anthony's sword.

"Anthony! No!" Dylan screeched, seconds before a powerful kick from Alex caught her offguard - directly in the temple, blinding her slightly.

"Dylan!" Alex's voice was stained, and it distracted the Thin Man.

Suddenly, Natalie had gone flying into another desk, and Alex was the Thin Man's newest target.

Dylan groaned, rubbing at her head as she pushed herself up onto one knee. Natalie was fitting a tranquilizer gun, unwatched by Anthony.

"Oh, shit," Dylan whispered.

Alex tripped, falling directly into Dylan's path. Anthony, face now murderous, screeched like a hyena, plunging home with a sword.

It hit nothing but tile.

Alex, breathing hard, had only seconds to process the fact that Dylan, shoving at her with her boots, had just saved her life by pushing her a feet away.

"You're welcome," Dylan ground at her friend, leaving her to her own devices when she launched at Natalie.

The gun was kicked away from Natalie's fingertips, and suddenly Dylan, the scrappy streetfighter, was engaged in a full out brawl with the fastest fighter she had ever come into contact with.

Natalie had long legs, her arms were muscled, lean, and her form - perfect. She had virtually no flaws that Dylan could remember, and suddenly, Dylan remembered all too well, her own.

"Dylan..." Natalie managed, slamming her elbow down to block Dylan's reverse ax kick, smashing into the top bones.

"Thank God for steel toe," Dylan muttered back.

Like a crack of a whip, Natalie's body twisted, a heel coming straight for her neck. Dylan blocked it, twisted under the leg to smash a fist into her ribs.

Natalie twisted - Dylan hit nothing but air.

The dance continued, and Dylan, now sweating profusely, jerked away for a precious second to find Alex sweeping a wire under the Thin Man, slamming onto his back. Without a word, Dylan scooped up a beaker with the arc of her foot, lobbying it up like a soccer ball and kicking it toward Alex's head.

Alex ducked immediately, allowing the Thin Man to get up.

"Damn, Dylan!" Alex snapped, before the Thin Man attacked.

"Sorry!" Dylan said back.

"I can't keep doing this," Natalie whispered. Dylan glanced questionably, and finally Natalie's expression shook her into stillness. The blonde stopped fighting, hands dropping to her sides, body slanted sideways. "I'm sorry, Dylan."

Dylan faltered. Her friend's blue eyes were moist, truly conflicted, and she looked like she was out of the spark that she had in her when it came to fighting.

Dylan should have known better.

"I'm sorry," Natalie said again.

Without a word, she twisted, and with a powerful sidekick, blasted her way into Dylan's ribs.

The pain that came from the shot was paralyzing.

Dylan crumpled to the floor, intense agony an explosion that emerged from her side.

The tears came, and Dylan could do nothing but hold her ribs, breathing in as hard and fast as she could as she tried to overcome it.

The deadly screech came, and someone cried out, and the fighting started all over again, this time without her.

Dylan sucked in her breath, huge gasping gulps, a random sob dripping tears down her cheek as she closed her eyes, cheek against the tile on the floor.

"Nat!"

The pain still flared, coming back and forth with her heartbeat. Slowly, Dylan managed to regain coherency.

What she saw nearly drove it back.

The fight had turned brutal, and with Dylan no longer there to stop the killing - both sides were very quickly going for lethal.

And the Thin Man - with no loyalties but her, had righteous anger on his face, as Alex slammed her foot in a roundhouse, and got thrown across the room for her trouble.

It had taken the three of them to take him down the first time.

He had taken a sword in his body and still survived.

And he was going at Natalie with every murderous impulse inside of him.

_Oh, God..._

She pushed to her feet. Her ribs screamed, and she gave a wordless cry in response. Biting her lip so hard she almost drew blood, she moved quickly, as fast as she could.

Natalie was good, but she was already tired from the fight with Dylan, and her heart was conflicted - not so angry.

She tripped, and there was a horrible second where Alex screamed, and the Thin Man lunged -

Dylan stepped in front of the sword.

It stopped millimeters from her skin.

The Thin Man was completely still, staring at her with wild, confused eyes.

Alex was breathless, frozen in her place, half up, half down.

Natalie, scrambling to her feet, held a gaze of pure astonishment.

It was shock - in a hurricane of emotions and accusations - Dylan had proved her loyalties with a simple move.

And the Thin Man had proven his.

Without a word, Dylan moved forward, stumbling slightly when her ribs protested, and he caught her, pulling her in close, moving back.

"Let's get out of here," she whispered.

The sword was still held to the other girls, but neither moved as Dylan half pushed, half stumbled with the Anthony toward the doorway.

One last look at her two best friends - she could think of nothing to say.

Their glazed expressions proved-

There was nothing she could say.

She slammed the door closed, leaving them inside.

_End chapter_


	10. Chapter Ten: Cloning Frank Sinatra

**CHAPTER TEN: CLONING FRANK SINATRA**

"Oh, God..."

The whisper broke the stillness of what chaos had left behind.

Alex, usually nimble, found her feet cemented to the floor, cotton-mouthed.

"Oh, God..."

Natalie's ramblings proved she wasn't in a much better state. Her friend and partner seemed to be slowly coming back to life, palms plastered on her chest, right above her heart.

Haunting images of Dylan's pain-wracked figures flashed at the previously blinded Alex. Reality wanted to take over, but the past was stubborn. Her hands, unconsciously fisted into palms, slowly relaxed. But her heart, racing along in erratic heartbeats, was no where near ready to calm down.

She took in a gulp of air in an attempt to clear her head.

"Oh, God..."

"Natalie?" she finally began, stepping around a broken glass gingerly, shoving it to the side with her boots.

"I can't believe it," Natalie whispered, blue eyes watered with unshed emotion.

"I know..." Alex stared at the closed door. "I don't know what happened..."

Natalie's glance at her was somewhat dumbfounded. "I kicked Dylan in her ribs! Her bruised ribs!" Slumping to the floor, Natalie swallowed hard, lost in the memory. "I think I fractured one."

Alex clamped her jaw. She had seen it. It was the ugliest move she had seen Natalie do in her years with the Angels, and Dylan, writhing in horrific pain on the floor while Natalie stood regretfully over her was a sight that she equated with her worst nightmare.

"I know," she said softly. Coming forward, she gave Natalie a grim, sympathetic smile. "I can't say I would have done that, Natalie – but you did what you thought you had to."

Natalie ignored her help. "Yeah," she muttered bitterly. "I'm so desperate to take out psycho boy I take a cheap shot at my best friend. And Dylan, instead of letting him kill me, steps in front of his sword."

"She loves you, Natalie," Alex answered, settling down on her haunches, carefully smoothing out Natalie's hair, now wispy and messy from the fight. "This isn't about us and her, you know that."

Natalie shook her head, lip trembling as her eyes closed, one lone tear spilling down her cheek. "I can't do this, Alex," she whispered brokenly. "I can't fight her. I'd rather die than see you two get hurt, and I can't do this-"

"Natalie..." There was a dark, shameful part of Alex that was relieved Natalie was breaking down, overtaken with emotion. It immediately placed her in the part of the comforter, forced into numbing her own rollercoaster feelings and putting them aside, for the sake of Natalie. "Nat..."

"Alex-"

"I know." Natalie's sky blue eyes glittered like jewels as she looked up beseechingly. "I know," she said again. There were no comforting words she could give Natalie. What happened here had made it real – and even now, the flash of Dylan gasping on the ground like a gutted fish tore at her.

As if sensing her turmoil, Natalie slipped into her arms, burying her blonde head into Alex's shoulder. The embrace was tight, desperate, when Natalie sobbed, Alex shuddered, closing her eyes and resting her cheek against Natalie's scalp.

When Alex finally released her, her friend's eyes were no less haunted, but Natalie's focus was slowly returning.

"Okay," she said, husky from her tears. "They were in here for a reason."

Alex nodded. Rising to her feet, she stumbled slightly, shock making her legs somewhat sluggish. Natalie kicked at the broken beakers, shaking her head.

From the one lab desk still upright, a computer gave a small, audible ding.

The Angels exchanged a quick, startled glance.

"And there we are," Alex said.

"What were they testing?" Natalie asked, pulling out the petri dishes to poke at the contents.

Alex quickly began to study the test, typing in quickly.

"Ballistics," she said finally. Motioning to the screen, she let out an unsteady breath. "She was looking for proof, all right."

Natalie looked up with anxious uncertainty, dropping the bullet she was holding. It fell back into the dish with a clang. "And?"

Alex studied the result. Her frown deepened, and her heart thudded.

"Look for yourself."

Natalie moved around her, eyes on the monitor.

"Oh, God..." she whispered.

The result was positive.

--

Dylan's palms, gingerly pressed against her ribcage in an awkward attempt to hold them into place, weren't doing much to dull the searing pain that jolted through her with every speed bump and twisted corner, but it didn't matter.

Natalie had done this to her.

Natalie.

Sweet, beautiful, haunting Natalie – with her picture perfect ways, and her loyalty that was given for life.

It was proof that Dylan's choice had been damning. This wasn't a vacation, and she was, for the first time – viewed by her friends as the bad guy.

Dylan was truly alone.

The fighting burned into her brain. Her friends had surprised her, and she wondered how she could have underestimated Natalie. The girl was blonde, and beautiful and loved her, but she was an Angel, and Angels were deadly. When push came to shove, they got the job done.

If that meant exploiting an obvious weak spot that an enemy had, so be it.

It wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth going against Nat and Alex when she needed them more than ever. She couldn't do this alone.

The Thin Man, one hand on the wheel, another casually resting on the driver's side window, allowing the smoke from his cigarette to trail behind the speeding car, was callously unaffected.

In once glance, she suddenly hated him.

"I can't fucking believe this," she muttered. Tears, acrid and burning, blurred her vision. Her voice was hiccupped with stained anger, her side paralyzed with pain. "I can't... fucking... believe this." Anthony ignored her, attention on the road, smoking idly. "I'm fucking alone – I've turned against my friends. I don't have the Angels, I don't have Charlie – I don't even have the law on my side."

Head falling back on the seat cushion, Dylan gave into the despair, the murmurings of her broken heart. "I've turned my back on everything I love – all for a stuck-in-the-forties mute assassin with ambiguous morals who tweezes!" At that, he finally gave her a longer glance, eyebrow arching as if in self inspection.

He was callous and cold and a killer. He would have killed her friends without a second thought.

Staring at him, lost in her own oblivion, Dylan shouted with broken bitterness. "WHY am I helping YOU?!"

Whether the plea was directed toward him, or to herself, she had no idea. Truthfully, it didn't matter. The Thin Man didn't answer. He gave no reaction, but instead slowed down at a stop light, a perfect gentlemen about traffic laws.

Huddled in her side of the car like a wounded dog, Dylan sniffled once, wincing slightly at the pain of her ribs.

A white stick, charred on one end, suddenly appeared in her line of sight. Dylan blinked, and followed it to the arm that extended it. The Thin Man, boring into her face with his diamond blue eyes, offered her the cigarette from his own lips.

It was unexpected, and still buried in bitterness, Dylan almost ignored it. But it burned in her face, small whisps of smoke wafting into her nostrils – delicious nicotine that teased.

Her injured area pounded, as if someone was pounding a jack hammer directly into her side, and in the end, the pain was just too much.

She snatched it without a word, taking it into her mouth and breathing in deeply. The drug seeped into her lungs almost immediately, dulling her senses, calming her tears.

That seemed to satisfy him.

Maybe it was the fact that Dylan had spoken more in the past day and a half than she had in any given week of her life, but the silence seemed different than before.

The Thin Man, who until then had said nothing to her one way or another about her rambling, seemed to enjoy the quiet moment.

Taking advantage of her sulky silence, Anthony placed a new cigarette on the tip of his lips, wetting the edge as he popped the cigarette lighter, as he turned onto the onramp of the freeway.

The 405 freeway, easily the worst congested with traffic, was twisted and windy, but surprisingly traffic free - an oddity. Passing Westwood, before one reached the valley, there was the canyons, where the Getty used to hide before it changed locations.

All in all, it was scenic, and somewhat pretty to whoever took the time to look.

Dylan took it in without comment.

The radio of the black convertible came to life with trumpets blasting with a big band.

Dylan blinked, brought back to earth.

Anthony sucked in another lungful of smoke as he twisted the knob, raising the volume.

Still unable to comprehend what she was hearing, Dylan stared dumbly.

Frank Sinatra finally took over, crooning delicately with the upbeat tempo, "_Fly me to the moon, let me sail among the stars-"_

"You've got to be kidding me," she managed.

Anthony flicked the ashes from the tip of his cigarette. His sideways glare was more than enough to say in his own way, 'Don't start'.

_"-spring is like on Jupiter and Mars. In other words-"_

"Frank Sinatra. Are you serious?" Stuffing the tip of her cigarette in her mouth, Dylan reached for his glove compartment, suddenly curious.

_"- Fill my heart with song-"_

The little latch twisted open easily, trumpets burned into Dylan's ears as the Thin Man's music collection spilled into her lap.

With a flabbergasted chortle, she shuffled through the discs like a deck of cards. "The Greatest Hits of Frank Sinatra," she read. "Frank Sinatra's hits. Live with Frank Sinatra. The Best of Frank Sina- I'm sensing a trend here."

The discovery was entirely too amusing for Dylan not to react with a small grin. Anthony's glare was murderous.

_"-all I long for, all I worship, and adore-"_

Taking another long drag of her cigarette, Dylan observed his profile as she exhaled. Slick black hair, skinny black tie. White shirt. Black blazer - mouth seductively breathing ing nicotine, creating a halo of smoke around him-

Something sparked in her mentality.

Looking down, she glanced at the portrait of Frank on the cover of the top cd. Slick black hair, skinny black tie. White shirt. Black blazer - mouth seductively breathing in nicotine, creating a halo of smoke around his-

"Oh, my god!" Her eyes grew round, the ridiculousness of the discovery forcing her to release a pent-up giggle. "You little cheat! And here I thought your Creepy Thin-ness was original!" She clucked her tongue. "You couldn't have been an Elvis fan?"

Anthony frowned, accelerating the car and jerking into the left lane, making Dylan lurch, and her ribs jolt angrily.

"Ouch! I'm sorry! GEEZ." Stuffing the discs back into the glove compartment, she let him drive. Frank Sinatra continued to croon his heart out, much to the dismay of the young high school couple one lane over. Dylan shrugged an apology.

Anthony drove in silence, obviously appreciating the music that Dylan, more or less, endured.

"You ever play Vegas?" she quipped.

He flicked his ashes at her.

_"-In OTHER words! I looove. You."_

When the song finally came to a blessed stop, Dylan raised her cigarette to her lips and rested the back of her head against the headrest, thankful for the respite.

The sound of trumpets overwhelmed the speakers. Again.

Dylan's head jerked off the headrest.

_"Fly me to the moon, let me sail among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on-"_

"You REWOUND IT?!"

_"-Mars. In other words-"_

"Okay, enough." With a grimace, Dylan reached over, and flicked a button.

Blink 182 filled the car with their loud electrics.

"Better," she said, smiling.

_"-I will not go-turn the lights off-carry me home-"_

The look Anthony gave her would have wilted flowers. He literally dropped his cigarette, reached for his cane, and nearly squawked at her.

"What?! It's a good song!"

He slammed at the radio with his hand.

_"nanananannannana-other words, please be true-"_

"Hey!" She tossed her cigarette in his lap, distracting him just enough to push the button back to where she had it.

_"-fill my heart with song and let me-come home, work sucks, I know-"_

He glared, swerving in his attempt to get her burning cigarette out of his lap.

Dylan frowned. "I never really figured out what this song was about." He arched an eyebrow, finally getting the cigarette out of his lap, and flicking it to her side. "Ouch! Hey!"

He reached for the radio.

"Look! A car!" Biting her lip, Dylan took the precious moment he glanced at the road to twist the knob quickly, sorting through radio stations.

_"-hold me when I'm scared you won't always be there, so love me when I'm gone-"_

"Ooh. I like this song." Dylan turned up the volume, just as he flicked a finger under her palm.

_"-In other words-"_

She batted his hand away. He hissed at her, snapping at her wrist.

_"-Right me when I'm wrong- fill my heart with song-Love me when I'm gone- forevemore. You are all I long for-hold me when I'm scared-"_

The car swerved now as both Dylan and Anthony began to literally fight for the use of the radio. His face, drawn into a furious pout, glinted with frustration, but Dylan, easily keeping him at bay with her two hands as opposed to his one, found herself increasingly amused.

He looked nearly ready to throttle her, and the songs kept jerking back and forth, between Frank and Three Doors Down, making for a curious, raunchy melody.

When the high schoolers in the Jetta glared again, Dylan finally gave up with a shout of laughter, hands flying up in surrender as her ribs creaked in response.

For once, she didn't mind the pain.

The Thin Man, sulking like a child, finally played his Frank, and Dylan, holding onto her aching ribs, laughed for what seemed the first time in ages.

--

To Seamus O'Grady, the man standing before him- the ever-famed 'Celebrity Sniper'- was nothing more than a pompous, un-extraordinary ass with a penchant towards unstable.

Nevertheless, there was something about him that seemed deceptively unnerving.

O'Grady was not a nice guy. His time in prison was an experience that he would never forget, hardened his heart into a lump of coal capable only of hate - and now, he was more than happy to let it remain that way.

It kept him alive, and alive was better than dead any other day.

When one was alive, one could pursue one's dreams, one's addictions.

One Helen Zaas.

The hot anger flared in his veins, and once again, he regarded the killer, bolding snatching the cigarette from his fingers and sucking the smoke into his own lungs.

"You've gone and found yourself a new obsession, have ya?" he snarled, tossing the white stick onto the dingy metal table, eyes narrowing at the man across from him.

The killer said nothing. He rarely spoke - and Seamus never cared to know the reason why. The little bastard was a means to an end - when he was done with him, he'd kill him - just like the others.

"Dunno why you're lookin' fer Angels when you've got your stars right here," Seamus snapped. The killer's mouth opened, but a quick hand straight up kept him from saying anything else. "You kill who I tell ya- the fact that you like it is just a perk."

The killer's eyes narrowed, thin eyebrows knitting together.

"Listen to me. You don't touch Helen. You don't touch her friends. You're overdue for a killin', and if you don't finish the job you started with that stupid pretty boy, I'll finish ya myself." The killer struggled now, but the tape that had been placed on his mouth, an extra security, as well as the bonds on his arms and legs, kept him from moving. Seamus leaned forward, plucking the gun from the desk, the odd shaped barrell of the luger fascinating him. "Kind of a pussy little gun, ain't it?" Without a word, he leveled it at the killer. "It's my job to love her. Not yours."

The killer's distinct eyebrows arched.

Seamus smiled, lowering the weapon. "Or hate her. Same thing."

With a chuckle, he swung his legs off the desk, pushing to his feet depositing the gun in the killer's lap and ripping the tape off his mouth simultaneously. Leaning forward, but not too close, he slapped playfully at the killer's cheek.

"I saved yer arse so you could shoot stars in heaven. But only I make the Angels fall."

Kicking roughly at the chair, Seamus walked away, quirking a finger to the men waiting. "Let him go."

--

Natalie felt unusually tired, pacing up the steps to her house.

Her arm stung in a place she had discovered bleeding. It was a gash she had received from a broken beaker. In the bitter chaos of the fight, she hadn't even felt it.

Life had always been sunny for Natalie. She couldn't wait to get work and she couldn't wait to get home. It was just part of being Natalie, and truthfully, she never understood pessimistic people. She was a lucky, lucky girl, and she meant to take her life by the balls - grab it and savor it and never let it go.

Tonight, she realized that for the first time in eight years, she dreaded going to work the next day.

An aching lump that wouldn't be swallowed down resided in the back of her throat, causing a curious pain that only ached in certain places. Her heart. Her stomach. Her head.

Inserting the key in the door, she pushed. Commotion greeted her.

Her boyfriend, usually a startlingly classic handsome man, splayed out on the floor, in the process of what appeared to be rolling over while her dog, Spike, watched somberly, cocking his head in befuddlement.

She closed the door behind her.

The sound got their attention. Pete pushed up with his palms on the floor. "Hey Nat!"

Spike yelped happily, heels clicking so quickly on the varnish that, instead of actually running to her, he managed slip his feet out from under him and land on his face.

The sight caused a half sob, half grin to come from Natalie, as she came forward, scooping her baby into her arms. Spike, despite the fact that he had knocked his chin rather hard on the floor, wriggled with ecstasy, licking at her cheeks, eyes, neck - and anything else he could reach.

"Hey, babe." Pete got to his feet, grinning sheepishly while he dusted himself off. "I was just... you know, trying to teach him how to roll over."

It was an odd feeling. Helplessness, depression, anger, and guilt all tugged at her, weighing her down.

But Pete, just by being Pete - brought a smile to her face.

"Looks like he's the one teaching you."

He chuckled, running a broad hand through his short cropped hair. "Yeah," he answered. Coming forward, he planted a kiss on her lips, lingering to caress a knuckle along her jawline. "You okay?"

Was she? Not really. Dylan was still out with a killer. Alex was burying it all inside.

And she was... home.

"Just a bad day at work," she answered, flashing a smile. "You know how it is. Girl stuff."

Pete smiled, and Natalie grinned back, leaning forward to kiss him again before settling on the floor, gathering her puppy to her.

"Let's get you to roll over."

--

He had more or less come to accept her presence.

She didn't say much. Chances were that her mind was full of her job, her dangerous, crazy job.

And he hated to admit it, but he let out a sigh of relief when she turned into his room, heels clicking loudly, almost coldly.

Immediately, Jason's eyes closed.

He heard footsteps falter, then start up again, slower. Soon, she was by his bed.

The tingle of her nearness melted into pleasure when a cool hand slid along his features, a long fingernail gently rasping his skin as she pushed bangs off his forehead.

There was a splash, another click, and she was back, pressing a cool, wet cloth to his face.

He snorted for good measure, shifting in his 'sleep'.

Alex paused.

He waited, and finally, felt it - a soft caress of lips against his forehead, sweeping to his eyes, and finally, landing on his mouth for an intimate, slow kiss.

With a final gentle press of her lips against his, she finally released him, and only then did he allow himself to squint an eye open.

Alex settled down in a chair next to the bed, pulling out a large, boring looking book and sliding on a pair of reading glasses.

She was staying, then.

Closing his eyes before she could look up, Jason shifted closer to her, ignoring the jolt of complaint from his stomach.

He finally let himself smile.

--

Exhaustion had taken over soon after she had collapsed on the bed, and Dylan, nursing what was more than likely a fractured rib and three bruised ones abused to the point of nearly breaking had succumbed to the nap.

The Thin Man, at last check, had been sitting on the small table beside the mattress, flipping idly through the Bible.

When Dylan awoke from the dreamless sleep four hours later, she was alone.

Why on earth there were actual motels in the Valley, Dylan didn't know.

The Motel 66 was both dingy, and gritty - the kind of place that rented rooms by the hour. Still, the room that had been rented wasn't horrible, and a bed, after all, was still a bed.

Dylan awoke with cold muscles, and her side ached more than ever. The cane, freshly polished and smelling oddly of varnish, had been deposited in her hands in her sleep.

Still exhausted, bitter, and almost resigned, Dylan didn't look for him. She used the cane to favor her right side, that being the side with ribs still intact, and had settled instead at the desk, pulling out notes and sketches she had managed to pull from her bungalow the day she went rogue.

Without knowing the outcome of the lab test, they were back where they started. The idea that Natalie and Alex would actually accept the possibility of Anthony's innocence was a pipe dream, slowly fading.

Dylan just didn't have the energy to go through another fight trying to keep Anthony from killing Nat and Alex, Alex and Nat from killing Anthony, and protecting herself at the same time.

With the cheap radio in the corner on a low rattle, Dylan slowly began to piece through the investigation. Every passing minute, her frustration grew.

She rubbed at her face with her cold palms, sighing as she massaged her neck. She needed Natalie and Alex for this. The pieces wouldn't fit for her.

The nagging instinct that Seamus was somehow involved still lingered. The Thin Man's pitch perfect imitation seemed to suggest it, but he never brought it up again, and Dylan, thanks to the excitement of the day and the horrible fight with Nat and Alex, had it driven right out of her mind.

Seamus could have killed her in that alley, but he didn't. He said there was a higher purpose, that she would lose everything and then understand what it meant to hate him.

And there was the business with her light, which she STILL did not understand.

What could Seamus have to do with killing celebrities?

It made no sense, and now – it just seemed too much to think about. Even now, the thought of Seamus plied her skin with goosebumps, made her shake uncontrollably, shudder with emotion she couldn't address now for fear of breaking down.

She'd press Anthony again later.

The assassin was going to have to talk eventually, and Dylan fully intended to nag him into doing it.

Her change of pace, stringing together the murders, helped her even less.

Three victims, two dead.

Annabeth Torres - Latina, twenty-five. A celebrity. Shot at the premiere with a Luger, two shots in the chest. She died on the carpet. Alex's notes scrawled that the Thin Man had been placed approximately thirty feet away some five seconds before the shooting, which meant he had those five seconds to get through the crowd to place the shot from ten feet away - and get away unnoticed.

Sandy Chin - Asian American, thirty-four. A television celebrity on the brink of crossing over. Stabbed outside the Dancing Harlot. Dylan remembered the crowd had been thick. She had been blinded by Anthony, but she remembered the complaint about the hair...

Dylan frowned. Quickly she perused Alex's notes. Alex said 11:15 she heard the scream - 11:16 the body had been stabbed.

Dylan had bolted after Anthony at 11:15. Which would mean he was either very fast - or he was already out of the crowd when the killer struck.

After a second of deep thought, she noted that - a purple scrawl under Alex's elegant red script.

The last victim. Jason Gibbons. Dylan's pen stopped. Jason, with his big, excited smile and beautiful brown eyes.

Her eyes closed with unsuppressed sadness. "God, Jason," she whispered. Taking a breath, she shook herself, a dizzying attempt to concentrate.

Jason Gibbons. Age Thirty-two. An action star. Shot in the middle of a crowded funeral only feet away from Annabeth's casket.

And still - the shooter had gotten away...

But Jason wasn't killed. He was shot only once, and it was in a non-lethal spot, as if the shooter wasn't trying to kill him at all...

Dylan frowned, brain twisting her thoughts, her facts...

Why didn't Jason fit?

Rattling at the door broke her concentration. Looking up, Dylan's hand tightened on the cane, watching with feigned relaxation as the doorknob twisted, and the door swung inward.

Anthony, dressed in his usual pin-striped suit and black tie, stepped in, a paper bag gathered in his hands, face hooded as he stared impassively at her, closing the door behind him.

The relief that flooded through her was almost instantly followed with anger.

"Where the hell were you?" she snapped. Anthony merely stared, mouth flat-lined. "You can't just leave anytime you feel like it, Anthony!" Pushing to her feet with a wince, she almost forgot her ribs at the look of pure ambivalence painted on his features. "LOOK! The reason I'm with you is because I'm trying to find the real guy, and I can't do it alone. For all we know the real killer could have shot someone else, and how would I know it wasn't you?" He ignored her, stepping across the room to place the bag on the bed, pushing aside the wrinkled blanket to reveal the white underneath. "Anthony!"

Without a word, he gave her a sharp glance, before his palm reached into the bag, and produced a package of ding-dongs.

Stunned into silence, Dylan's mouth dropped open with a surprised gasp as he held them out for her to take.

"Oh," she managed. He shook them at her, crinkling the package in his impatience. Suddenly all-too-aware of the rumblings of her stomach, she took them from him. "Thanks."

Battling with the wrapper, Dylan watched in stunned astonishment while he continued to unload the bag. A huge carton is cigarettes - long, slim, and expensive. Bottled water. Two sandwiches. Toilet paper. These went on the dresser.

From a smaller white bag, the Thin Man produced a small bottle of advil, more gauze, and a large roll of medical tape.

Hefting the tape, he motioned with a quick jerk to the bed.

Oh. Right.

Stuffing the second ding dong into her mouth with a gulp, Dylan breathed in heavily, sitting with difficulty on the edge of the bed, back ramrod straight.

Mattress shifting under his weight, he crawled onto it, tapping roughly on her shirt as he snapped open his blazer, shrugging it out of it carefully, presumably for dexterity. When she sat dumbly, he nodded again, tapping harder on her shoulder.

"Okay, okay," she managed. "Geez."

The shirt she was wearing was a simple, comfortable black sleeveless tank that fit to her form well and made it easy to fight.

It also required her to pull it over her shoulders.

"Shit," she whispered. Biting on her lower lip, Dylan braced herself for the pain. Pulling up, it came as an angry jolt, spiking her in her side. She gasped, shuddering for breath as she tried again. The stab of pain suddenly felt as if the knife inside her was twisting-

Anthony shifted off the bed, coming around to push between her legs. With an impatient nod, he reached for the edge of her shirt, waiting as she took another unsteady breath.

Quickly, he jerked the shirt up and off, snagging her chin slightly, but managing to keep the pain at least bearable.

"Thanks," she said unsteadily.

The black bra she wore was practical, but snug. It encased her bosom nicely, with ample cleavage, and for the first time in a while, Dylan felt quite self-conscious about it.

Anthony barely looked. His concentration was on her side. The gauze had long since disappeared, and the tape hidden underneath had peeled away with the sweat.

What was left was her skin, going purple with bruises - ugly to the eye, and painful to look at.

Tugging at the tape with his teeth, he lost no time.

Unconsciously, Dylan grabbed his shoulders, digging in hard as he knelt down, stretching the tape and massaging the end of it on her stomach, making sure it stuck.

He paused, hands in position, and glanced up.

With a quivering lip, Dylan nodded.

The cry that came from her lips wasn't entirely unexpected, but he didn't stop until ribbons of tape were firmly wrapped around her torso, ribs now firmly held in place.

In the process, she had gone from straight upright to biting down on his shoulder, face buried in his neck, fingers clamping down at his shirt, nearly tearing it to shreds.

Her chest was heaving, heart racing, but as his fingers massaged the last bit into place, it became a little easier to focus, pain lessening to a throb.

"Oh, God," she whispered. "Thanks, Nat." Blinking away the tears that had come unexpectedly, her fingers unconsciously tightened around him, wrapping around his neck as, in a burst of weakness, she held onto his strength a little longer.

Anthony - showing admirable self control, which in reality just wasn't really that much - was already starting to dig into her hair, cheek brushing hers as he inhaled into the nape of her neck.

HAIR!

Pushing away from her desperate embrace, she swallowed hard, patting at his shoulder, and smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt. Crawling back on the bed, she eyed her shirt.

There was no way in hell she was even going to try putting that thing back on right now.

"Okay," she said, patting her thighs, and waving him onto the bed. "Your turn."

He regarded her suspiciously, but Dylan paid him no attention. She grabbed the paper bag, pulling out the gauze.

"You'll have to take a shower later," she told him, pulling at his tie deftly when he finally settled across from her. "Wash that thing out. I just hope the stitches haven't torn." Like the baby he sometimes was, Anthony seemed content to watch as she undressed him, pulling out the tie from its knot, unbuttoning his shirt, and fanning her fingers over his shoulders, letting it drop.

"I never understood how men could wear so many layers," she muttered, taking the wife-beater he wore underneath and pushing it up his chest. "Up," she said. He lifted his hands skyward.

Minutes later, Dylan was finishing the dressing. The wound, healing slowly, but definitely healing, was clean - the closing scab hadn't been torn.

"You're like a super fast healer," she muttered, tapping at his chest. "Good for you."

He glared at her.

The look had been directed at her so many times now, it only made her smile in response. "What's with the one facial expression, hmm?" she shook her head, focused as she wrapped the last bit of the white cloth around his body. "I mean - I'm kinda an orphan too, but I can at least crack a joke once in a while. Are you like, even capable of a smile? Maybe a little tick that could move your mouth up that way?"

He let out a heavy breath, but that was all. Glancing up at his blue-blue eyes, her grin grew wider.

"Not even if I tickle you?" she asked.

The wicked thought was most likely suicidal, but it had lodged herself in her brain, and Dylan, always impulsive, had no other choice but the scratch lightly at his ribs - the exact place where he had reacted before.

Immediately, he caught her wrist, eyes furrowed in a hooded 'don't-even-think-about-it' glower.

"Ha," she said. He wouldn't let her palm go, so she merely tickled with the other.

He squirmed, and caught her other hand.

"Oh, my GOD! This is great! You're ticklish!" she found herself laughing, struggling against his steel grip as she whispered, "I got you now, Achilles. The next time you try to kill me or my friends - I'm telling them that the super Creepy Thin Assassin is TICKLISH!"

At that he pounced, and with a squeal, Dylan was suddenly the recipient of a raid, fingers dancing over her skin.

"ACK! NO!" Her eyes began to build up with tears, and suddenly, she was laughing, much to the dismay of her ribs. "Anthony! Please-"

But he was as unmerciful in a tickle fight as he was in a real one, relentless as he slid fingers up her right side, maneuvering around her slaps.

The pain came sharply, and her laughter was interrupted by a gasp of pain.

"Anthony! My ribs!"

He paused.

At that moment, she dug fingers into her skin, and tickled.

He screeched, and the quirk of his lips came so fleetingly she thought she imagined it.

"Wait... was that a smile?" she whispered, pausing their game to slide a wondering palm to his cheek. "Did you just smile?"

His face froze, legs tangled with hers, palms now holding his torso over hers.

He didn't smile again.

Instead, his mouth met hers in a lingering caress.

The action was so natural, so instinctive, that Dylan didn't stop twice to think of the ramifications of her actions.

Alex would have told her to stop what she was doing - think about it. Falling for the bad guy was just not a good idea.

Natalie would have watched in disbelief and offered to set her up with one of Pete's friends.

But Natalie and Alex weren't here.

Dylan's eyes closed, and her mouth opened, lips moving hotly over his as he sighed, the precious hair smelling exhale that went through her, bringing her alive and making her squirm under him.

He kissed her with infinite patience, deliberate, intense, and slow - warm as his tongue dipped inside her to taste her, as if sipping a sweet wine - too rich to be gulped.

Her fingers, in a soft mimic of his, tangled in the nape of his neck, running strands through her fingertips.

She pulled, and following her, he sank down. Anthony's body, hard as it was lean, blanketed her, and the sensation of his bare chest brushing against her own was so amazing, she moaned in delight.

His kisses went deeper, harder as he moved in and out of her mouth, lazy but deliberate.

When Dylan's ribs creaked with complaints at the activity, she told them to shut up.

**end chapter**


	11. Chapter Eleven: Mary, Mary

**CHAPTER ELEVEN: MARY, MARY**

In a small shabby motel room located somewhere in the valley, the outside world had ceased to exist.

From the cheap radio that the motel provided, left on and forgotten in the events that had followed Anthony's return, a familiar song began to play, queued up by the deejay as a top forty request.

Dylan Sanders lay on her side, her good side, eyes fluttering closed in lazy satisfaction, pillowed on her cheek by a lean, muscular bicep. The arm that cushioned her wrapped delicately around her body, fluttering fingers skimming her shoulder and skin below.

His other hand was being particularly naughty. Anthony seemed to have an obsession for skin – almost as feral as his obsession with hair, and in his position, warm, naked body spooned into hers, his free hand gently caressed her left breast, tickling, teasing.

Dylan didn't move, much. She squirmed under the attention, but Anthony, ever faithful in his obsession, currently had his face buried in the nape of her neck, tenderly brushing lips and raking teeth against the hair there, breathing in her scent, and blowing his sighs against her skin – tingling against her.

The attention created the purr that made her smile, arch against him, and push back further, covering his palm with hers, lifting it to her mouth and gently biting down on his fingers affectionately.

Anthony was lost in her. His fingers brushed along her lips, calloused but surprisingly smooth, and still, his mouth sucking wet circles gently on her neck and shoulders sent small, painful shudders through her body.

She was dangerously close to falling asleep, the satiation and release she had experienced not twenty minutes ago (twice) had exhausted her body, and buried her mind in a cloud. It was a blissful, wonderful feeling – as if there was nothing that needed to exist but being here, with a man, who – miracle of all miracles – liked to cuddle.

His hand, deliberately, left her breast to paint a trail downward, rubbing gently at her curls underneath her stomach, teasing...

"Anthony," she groaned, arching against him as she laughed helplessly, weakly. "I don't think my ribs can take it without at least a little break."

He shifted slightly, and suddenly she was plundered in another kiss, hard and wet and demanding. When he released her, she knew she must have looked like some fiery titan, red curls tangled and wild against the sheets, lazy-eyed.

But his fingers went further, and she lost her focus as her neck fell against him, cheek scraping his as she gasped.

His hair, soft and smooth once released from the shellacked gel he was such a fan of, tickled her chin, and since it was tickling that started this whole thing, she didn't mind one bit.

He held her roughly to him, as if afraid that any second she could disappear. His palm spread broad against her arm, trapping her chest between his torso and his forearm. And still, he rubbed, mouth buried in her neck, a throbbing hardness teasing her from behind.

It was slow, but relentless. Her ribs were unwelcome participants, but in this position, they moved as little as possible, providing only sharp distractions when she was forced to take a quick, heady gasp in.

He pumped against her, always focused, always in control – and Dylan...

Dylan was a mess.

A quivering, jellied, wild, wanton mess.

When it happened for the third time, it wasn't hard and careening out of control, like the first one, or a fall from the precipice while she was still winded and recovering, like the second.

It was a warm flood, gently drowning her in every possible sensation – an eruption that melted her against him.

She gasped slightly, eyes closing as lips brushed her forehead, her eyes, her lips.

The radio creaked, and suddenly she gave a small, weak laugh.

Eyes fluttered to find him staring at her curiously, and she explained with a soft smile, "The song. You hate this song."

He listened, squinting toward the radio as Three Doors Down crowed from the radio.

"I think it's pretty," she whispered, stretching as well as she could against his walled embrace. "I like what it says..."

_'So hold me when I'm here, right me when I'm wrong, hold me when I'm scared, and love me when I'm gone-'_

She wasn't sure, but as she drifted off to sleep, she could have sworn he was listening.

_'-Everything I am, and everything in me – wants to be the one you wanted me to be. I'll never let you down, even if I could, give up everything if only for your good. So hold me when I'm here, right me when I'm wrong, if you hold me when I'm scared, you won't always be there, so love me when I'm gone.'_

_'Love me when I'm gone'._

_--_

Alex Munday had slept maybe three hours the entire night.

The shadows under her eyes, she knew, must have been huge and monstrous.

Her lipstick had long since rubbed off, and her hair, a dirty, sweaty mass, had never been so close to being chopped off.

But she didn't move, shifting only once to recross her legs and reaching for another pile of notes sitting in the chair beside her.

The hospital coffee was crap and cold, but Alex downed it in one grimace, putting it back on the dresser beside the bed, switching it for a pen.

Quickly, she took a quick glance at Jason. He wrinkled his nose, eyes closed as he shifted over, wincing.

She frowned slightly, running down her page of video tape logs before speaking up. "Do you need another pain killer?"

"Huh, what?" Jason's eyes shot open, seconds after, she supposed, he remembered he was supposed to be asleep, and closed them immediately.

She smirked, tapping at the papers with her pen as she regarded him. "Jason, you can open your eyes. You've been awake for the past hour."

He squinted his eyes open, looking almost sheepish. "How did you know? I'm a good actor."

"You're a great actor," she corrected gently, pushing aside her paperwork to rise out of her chair and gently straighten his pillow, smoothing his sheet over the bed. "But you also snore when you're asleep – and you can't fake that."

He blinked, caught in his guilt, stunned into silence. "So, wait a minute," he said, processing the information. "You've known all along when I wasn't asleep?"

She smiled, gently flicking bangs out of his forehead. "I figured when you wanted to talk you would."

His deep brown eyes had always had a curious effect on her, a melting inside that she could never quite explain. That, coupled with his little boy smile, were dangerous tools, and judging from the room, piled high with gifts, balloons and flowers until it resembled some sort of chaotic forest, many fans agreed.

"Yeah," he said finally. She smiled back briefly, straightening to pour him a glass of water from the pitcher by his bed. "So... I'm glad you're here, Alex," he ventured.

She froze slightly, turning to give him an uncharacteristic awkward smile. "Jason... I'll always be here."

He took the glass thoughtfully, looking almost insecure as he sipped. "I wish I could believe that."

It was easier, right now, to ignore the comment than to try to prove it, and Alex, usually never lazy, opted to change the subject.

"So, have they assigned you guards at all?" she asked. "I checked with the nurse, and she said that the last guard left his shift about midnight. I haven't seen anyone come in since."

Jason shrugged, fingering along the rim of the glass. "It's that police lady. She really sucks. Says something about me not being a target or something – resources needed other places."

"Not needed?" Alex repeated, disbelief freezing her features. "Jason – you were almost a victim of the Celebrity Sniper- that we haven't caught."

"Thank you!" he said, hand up in ecstatic agreement before he winced, holding his side. "That's what I said! She's stupid! Come to think of it – she was the lady in charge of the funeral thing, too."

Alex blinked. "What?"

Jason grimaced, obviously annoyed at the whole thing. "Yeah! There were no cops around, none at all. She sent them all away! I saw her talking to this guy, she wanted them all out of there! I mean, I just played a cop in my last movie, I know a little about the process, and that was just a bonehead thing to do-"

Alex felt the world sink further into her, trapping her in breathless anticipation. "Jason, what was her name?"

"Huh?"

"The cop, Jason- her name?"

"Oh..." he squinted, trying to remember, "I would watch out for her, Alex, she was in here, asking these questions... Uh... Mary... Mary Bug-"

"Mary Briggs?" she finished quickly.

"Yeah! That's it!"

"Oh, God." The papers flew, and a startled Jason stared as Alex began to gather them quickly, stuffing them without order into her briefcase. "Jason – I have to go. I'm going to call and make sure you get a guard here, okay? But I gotta go-"

"Hey, Alex!"

With a quick lunge, she planted a firm, distracted kiss on his lips.

In the next second, Alex was out the door.

--

Natalie looked homely, gross, and somewhat plain.

She didn't mind at all.

The thick glasses obscured the blue of her irises, and in reality, they gave her a bit of a headache, but she didn't mind that either.

Instead, the goofy grin and wild ragged blonde of a wig made people want to look the other way instead of directly at her, exactly what Natalie wanted.

A foot away from the door of the Morgue Coroner, Natalie's cellphone began to beep.

Without missing a step, Natalie swept right by the door, casually nodding to a passerby and answering the phone.

"Hello?"

"Natalie, it's Alex."

"Alex!" Natalie managed another smile to another doctor, whose gaze flickered suspiciously at her badge before moving on. "Not a good time, babe!"

"Mary's a rat."

"Pardon?"

"Mary Briggs? Our stoic bitch cop lady? She's working for the sniper. Or something. She's setting it up!"

Natalie blinked. "Wait, are you sure?"

"Yes! I don't have the particulars right now, but I'm on my way to the lab to grab the tapes. I'm going to trace a few things. I could use an extra set of eyes."

Natalie considered. Backing against the wall, she began to move once again toward the coroner's office. "I'm at the Morgue right now. I was just going to grab some extra reports on Sandy – see what the Coroner had to say about time of death, and what kind of blade and what not – I hacked into Jason's account at the FBI, and Alex-"

"What?" she whispered.

"It wasn't the same gun that shot the other two."

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as you can put the sure in surely."

Alex was quiet for one fate filled second. "Be careful," she clipped. "Meet me back at the lab as soon as you can."

"Yes," Natalie confirmed. "Hopefully we'll start to get some answers instead of just raising more questions."

She snapped the phone closed, and in the same movement, slipped a hand around the knob, opened the door, and slipped inside.

Slipping her cellphone into the white medical labcoat, Natalie finally got a look at what a Lab Coroner's office looked like.

"Huh," she said, taking a step forward. "This is... cheery."

Pictures and movie posters were plastered along the walls, every inch covered.

"Movie fan," she muttered, eyeing the powers. ME-1, Chosen, Simple Things...

"Yes. Originally he got into the coroner gig because he was doing research for a screenplay," interrupted a voice, tinged with annoyance.

Natalie glanced back, and found a tall figure glowering from the doorway.

"He ended up sticking around," Mary Briggs continued. "Natalie."

"Ms. Briggs," Natalie answered, a trifle uneasy. Mary blocked the exit, and Natalie, caught in the office of a guy who examined dead bodies for a living, wasn't exactly comfortable.

Mary took in her disguise, an amused smirk floating on her features. "Not really your look, is it?"

"Actually, I kinda like it," Natalie said. Giving up the pretense, she pushed off the wig, massaging at her golden blonde strands underneath until they fell down suitably over her shoulders.

Mary's lips quirked, before they straightened into that ever familiar glare. "What are you doing here, Natalie?"

"My job," she answered easily.

Mary took that in. She pursed her lips, kicking the door closed behind her. "You should be keeping people alive, not scoping out information on the ones already dead."

"Any forensics expert knows the clues are already on the dead," Natalie quoted. "There's no need to pressure the living."

"Really," Mary said. "Because I happen to get my results much better the other way." Natalie's eyes narrowed. Her fingers pulled into a fist as Mary reached into her blazer.

Could she outrun a bullet? Not in here. There was no room to jump-

Mary pulled out her hand quickly, revealing what appeared to be a harmless newspaper.

"Go back to heaven, Nat," Mary said crisply. "The Angels have officially been offed my case."

She slapped the newspaper into Natalie's palms, creating a sting against her skin.

Without a word, Natalie snapped it open, glancing at the headline, and the picture underneath it.

"Hollywood Detective may have ties to Celebrity Sniper," she read.

Dylan's face stared grimly at her from the photo.

Oh, God.

Mary snatched the paper from her hands, eyebrow rising.

"Where is she?"

--

In her sleep, she had shifted from her side to her stomach. Her arm, unguarded, had moved directly under her ribcage, creating a dull throb that spiked her senses.

She awoke with a gasp of pain.

She also woke up alone.

The radio, tinny and annoying, was blasting a weird song that appeared to be hip-hop, but seemed to be coming from Jewel.

The comforter, long ago discarded, lay in a tumbled heap at the bottom of the bed, dangerously close to slipping over. Dylan, naked under the sheet, couldn't move much. Her ribs, grown cold and stiff in her sleep, creaked their good-afternoon.

Still, the sunlight flashed through the creaks in the cheap curtains at a very bare right side of the bed.

"Anthony?"

Dylan's alert state, so different from the blissful mood in which she had fallen asleep, was slowly beginning to pound in with a small jolt of panic.

Her eyes swept the room, quickly accounting for what they had brought in.

Everything was here but Anthony's clothes.

She swallowed, gaze roaming further, and found the Thin Man's cane, resting neatly on the pillow, just above where she was sleeping.

She glared at it. "That better mean you're coming back, jerk," she muttered, sucking in a gasp of pain.

Whatever she had expected as a morning after, this was decidedly not it.

Not that it mattered. Dylan expected that she would probably be pissed as a wild cat in heat when he finally made his appearance again, but at the moment, she was too resigned to care.

It had been a nutty, crazy, three days, and she had gotten three of the greatest orgasms of her life out of it.

She'd only kill him if he managed to kill someone else while he was gone.

The dingy shower looked especially enticing, and since she remembered distinctly some shampoo and conditioner in Anthony's bag from his little shopping spree, there seemed like no better way to kill the time.

She... uh... really needed a shower.

The door rapped, loud and hard, as she managed to push herself up.

Dylan considered, glaring at the door, wrapping the sheet around herself.

"Where's the do-not-disturb sign when you need it?" she muttered.

More than likely, it was the motel manager. Dylan distinctly remembered saying they'd pay for the night, and one look at the clock told her it was after twelve.

The door shook again under the heavy knocking.

"Okay!" she snapped. "Geez." Grabbing her wallet, and pulling out a forty, she headed to the doorway, wrapping the sheet further around her, and twisting the knob. "Fine, fine! I know we're la..."

Dylan trailed off, throat going dry at a look at her new guest.

Mary Briggs smiled, holding up a white sheet of paper with a very official seal on it. "Dylan Sanders? Got a warrant for your arrest."

--

Alex's Mercedes swerved into the curb with a screech.

Quickly, she unbuckled her seatbelt, gathering her papers and running on the cement, heedless of the possible torture on her heels.

She was distracted, frantically looking through her notes as she preformed the eye scan and the hand print, pushing open the door, and stepping inside, never looking where she was going until she stepped into the ballistics room.

Once inside, she finally got a good look.

The lab desk, the one remaining standing after Dylan and The Thin Man's flight, the one holding the proof of the Thin Man's guilt, was completely destroyed. The computer was now in two pieces, and it appeared Alex, steps faltering in the middle of the room, was standing on a piece of the monitor.

The acrid smell of smoke littered the air.

Alex's papers dropped to the floor.

She swallowed hard, palm spreading into a knife lunge as she jerked behind her – to the corner she had neglected to check before she entered.

And there he stood, moving slowly around her, taking another drag from the long white cigarette that seemed to be his very world.

Alex stepped off the glass, moving with him, watching carefully.

"Where's Dylan?" she asked. "She know you're here?"

He paused in his taste of nicotine, taking a moment to drop the cigarette on the floor, rub it out politely on the floor, before he pounced.

She caught the lunge with an upper block, using the moment to twist the arm to her neck and pushing down on the elbow-

He twisted away from the lock before she could break the arm, and immediately delivered a roundhouse that almost knocked her over.

The broken monitor now seemed the least of her problems.

--

"Mind if I come in?" Mary asked.

She looked infuriatingly smug, eyeballing Dylan head to toe before she stepped into the motel room, glancing around.

"Had a late night?" she asked.

"I'm not much of a morning person," Dylan answered stiffly.

"Hmm," Mary responded. Pausing in the center of the room, she zoomed in on the bed. Dylan's heart constricted when she realized where Mary was looking.

The black cane stood out like a roach on the all white of the stained cotton sheets.

"Interesting," Mary said, moving to pluck it from the pillow, twirling it easily in her fingertips. "I once saw one of these. Belonged to this assassin – on the FBI's Most Wanted List now."

"Thanks to you?" Dylan asked flippantly.

Mary grinned. "I don't help the FBI – but if they receive an anonymous tip or two, there isn't much I can do about it."

"I bet," Dylan responded. She couldn't move. Her ribs were now sufficiently warmed up to throb properly, and Dylan, quite immodest last night with Anthony, now cared quite a bit that her clothes had somehow managed to scatter themselves all over the room.

Mary stopped grinning. "Where is he, Dylan."

"I wouldn't know," Dylan answered honestly. "You know men. They come and go as they please."

"Hmm," Mary answered. "Sure. I can believe that. I can believe that the guy you've been running around with, and from the looks of things, have been screwing on the side, would up and leave his cane with you, a possible murder weapon, and never come back."

Dylan said nothing.

Mary regarded her. Without a word, she reached behind her, and plucked out a pair of handcuffs.

"Let's go," she snapped. "I'm not taking the fall for this, and it looks like your boyfriend decided who could."

Dylan's feeling of deja-vu seemed so damned overwhelming, she could envision Eric Knox in Mary's place.

A burst of anger brought her fire back. "Mind if I get dressed first?"

Once again, Mary lingered on her body, in such a way that Dylan instinctively pulled the covers closer around her.

"Why would you wanna cover that body up?" Mary said, cocking her head. "I'd be proud of it."

"You always want what you can't have," Dylan answered easily. "Like, say my clothes?"

Mary smiled, eyeing the room, and landing on an object that was scattered next to the open box of cigarettes. Her smile froze.

"Hey..." Coming forward, she plucked Dylan's lighter from the table, flipping it open, and sparking the tip, observing the flame. "So now your boy is a thief too? This is stolen property. Mine in fact. It was a gift from a friend."

The lighter, Dylan's lighter, went into Mary's pocket.

Dylan was unfazed by Mary's smug smile. Instead, her mouth opened, and a sharp gasp nearly caused her ribs to crack.

In that second, she knew exactly who Mary had gotten the lighter from.

--

Alex wasn't answering her phone.

Natalie nearly crashed into a little black BMW on her way to the lab, frantically dialing. In her fanatical movements, the little earpiece slipped out of her ear twice, and the third time it landed in her lap, she gave up, dropping the phone onto the car seat and pushing hard on the accelerator.

Alex's Mercedes was already there, parked about ten feet from a black car she dimly recognized, but didn't really care to remember where.

Slipping outside, she slammed the car door closed, dialing one more time and holding the phone to her ear.

It rang and rang.

"Dammit, Alex!" she snapped. "Where are you?"

A crash from above her made her jerk her gaze to the windows of the laboratory.

Eyes widened to the width of small moons, Natalie's jaw dropped as two figures hurtled through the glass, landing in a rolling thud two feet from her.

She blinked. "Oh. There you are."

Alex managed to kick her way free, wiping a smidgen of blood from her lip while The Thin Man snarled at her from his crouched position, resembling a tiger ready to pounce.

"Natalie?"

"Alex!" Natalie said, fumbling with her phone as she tried to put it away. "I was trying to call you-"

And there they went again.

Alex, amazingly active on her very high heels, actually used them against him, burying the pointy stiletto into his tummy, making him grunt with pain.

She did, however, get a smack in her face that sent her reeling as her reward.

Natalie watched for a second, before she tried again. "Listen-"

"Grab me!"

Alex came whirling at her, and instinctively, Natalie snapped onto Alex's hand, twirling her automatically, enabling the smaller Asian girl to gain the momentum she needed for the kick at the Thin Man's chest.

It worked remarkably well.

Unfortunately, that pissed off The Thin Man, and by default, included Natalie into the fight – an unintentional mistake.

"Guys!" She ducked a fist, teetering back. "I really-" Swish- "Need to talk-" She swept The Thin Man's feet, knocking him briefly to the ground. "To you!"

"Natalie! A little busy here!" Alex snapped, brushing the hair from her face frantically. "Can't it wait?"

The Thin Man screeched, attacked, and Natalie's concentration was broken when she now had to move as quickly as she could to avoid getting pummeled by his fists.

"Ow! I think I broke a nail," she managed, in a short second where his attention was on Alex.

"NAT!"

It was becoming a tiresome cycle – The Thin Man advancing, Alex blocking, Natalie trying to talk, and getting continually interrupted to fight when the Thin Man advanced, and Alex blocked, and Natalie tried to talk-

She was done with it.

"ALLRIGHT! ENOUGH!" The shouted bark had done its work. Suddenly, Natalie was in the middle, hands outstretched to ward off both fighters. "ENOUGH! THIS STOPS RIGHT NOW."

Alex blinked, frozen in mid kick, leg splayed out uncomfortably above her face.

The Thin Man looked equally befuddled. He craned his neck, keeping his hand up uncertainly.

"Uh... Natalie?"

"LISTEN! BOTH OF YOU!" Natalie was, by now, breathless, and it took her a couple gasps to get her sentences even. "Dylan! I mean – Mary, I ran into Mary 'the Bitch' Briggs! Dylan's in trouble! Mary was in the coroner's office, and Dylan's wanted – and they couldn't find out where she is-"

"Nat- slow down! What happened!?" Alex said, foot coming down.

The Thin Man blinked.

"They're AFTER her!" Natalie finally managed. She waved emphatically to both her friend and her enemy, their common interest now giving her their unfocused attention. "Mary's after Dylan! While I was there with her, she got a call from a uniform, who saw the THIN MAN leaving the Motel 66 off of Fair Oaks in the Valley. They're on their way now!"

Alex's eyes widened. "Oh, God-"

The Thin Man's face revealed nothing, but his figure returned to his perfect posture. Without a word, he straightened his suit, swept back his hair, and motioned with a jerk to his car.

Natalie watched in gaped astonishment as he opened the passenger car door, and waited with ill disguised impatience.

When they continued to stand there, he huffed and came forward.

Natalie was too stunned to argue when he grabbed them both by the elbows, pushing them in the direction of the car.

"Uh..." Alex gave her a wide-eyed, boggled gaze. "I guess he's driving?"

**End chapter**


	12. Chapter Twelve: Bad Girls

**CHAPTER TWELVE: BAD GIRLS**

Mary Briggs was the type of women who relied entirely too much on her gun.

Dylan could have used that.

The teachers that Charlie had commissioned to 'get her into shape' after he had recruited her had always stressed that Dylan could never rely on anything but her body.

However, her body wasn't tied to a chair or hanging from a noose or anything useful that Dylan could have used to get herself out of this, and instead of a bad guy teasing her with her hand on the butt of the gun, it was an LAPD officer.

Dylan was understandably and slightly scared. She was stuck in a Catch 22, and the only thing that raced through her mind was to keep Mary talking. The older woman was big on ego, and that, like any weak spot, was easily exploited.

"I'm sensing there's a little more of a personal investment here," she began slowly.

"Now, why would you think that?" Mary asked, twirling the cane, offering a distraction as it flipped into the air, allowing her to catch it easily.

"Oh, I don't know..." Dylan let her gaze rove over her body, keeping her own posture relaxed, easy. A small, self-assured smirk floated to her lips. "Middle-aged cop, a little out of shape – probably runs five miles a day and keeps her ass purely off carbs – but it's never enough. Smart and good at her job, but stuck in a rut, and inexplicably weak when it comes to her lovelife."

Mary's smile was slowly faltering.

"And then there are these girls. Younger, prettier, smarter. With boyfriends and money, and more respect that you'll ever have-"

The gun was out, leveled on her as Mary cocked, face stone cold. "You trying to get me to want to kill you? It's working."

The barrel was trembling, which was exactly what Dylan hope. One second of time, one moment Mary could lose control, and Dylan could move in.

But Mary, face scarlet with suppressed rage, was nicely disciplined. She took in a ragged breath, and carefully, slowly, brought herself under control.

"But that's not my job." She tossed the cuffs, whipping them so they landed against Dylan's chest with a painful clang. "Put them on, I'm getting tired of this."

Dylan dangled them from one finger, cocking her head in mock puzzlement. "I didn't see any squad cars out there. I know a little about this business, a sting like this would have required back up."

Mary smiled. "Who said we're going to the cops?"

--

Alex swore, God was punishing her for all her ice-cold frigidness regarding Jason. All the judgment that had been reserved was now heaping down on her.

She was going to die, and the Thin Man was her reaper.

"Natalie..." she breathed in heavily.

"Don't mind me," she heard from the backseat, a tight tone that was seeped in fear. "For once I'm glad you always call shot gun."

Alex sucked in a gasp, checking for the third time that her seatbelt was tied as the Thin Man continued to swerve and nearly sideswipe every car on the 405 freeway.

When the line of traffic slowed down for an accident, he took a calm drag of his cigarette, and slid into the shoulder, nearly riding the wall before he narrowly avoided colliding with a big rig. Another screech, another honk they were on the open road again.

"I'm gonna die," Alex whispered. "I'm gonna die."

And then things got completely surreal.

The Thin Man, taking advantage of about ten feet of free space, reached for the CD Player, and pressed play.

When Frank Sinatra began to sing, he very nearly smiled, nodding his head before swerving into another lane and pushing a little blue Jetta out of the way.

Alex blinked in disbelief, craning her head to look at Natalie, who stared back in complete bewilderment.

"This is it. I'm not dead. I'm in the Twilight Zone."

--

"Exactly what do you want with me?" Dylan asked, drawing the sheet closer around her. "If you don't mind me asking."

Mary shrugged, keeping the gun centered on her. "I'm just doing what I'm told."

"So now you're a lap dog?" Dylan retorted. "Excuse me for thinking you were your own woman."

"Easy mistake to make," Mary replied. "There are no independent people in the LAPD. Everyone answers to someone else."

Dylan smiled morosely. "So are they any ethical people in law enforcement?"

"Sure," Mary replied. "I used to be one of them."

"Let me guess," Dylan said, moving as carefully, subtly as she could toward the bed, where Mary had tossed the cane once she tired of it. "Wide-eyed, full of dreams of saving the innocent, really making a difference, and one case soured your life."

"Try getting black-balled after busting a ring that implicated so many celebrities I nearly got thrown in jail." Mary shrugged. "It was either join the club or be a cop in jail. I chose the lesser evil."

Dylan's small smile twisted in response.

Mary blew out her breath, uncocking her gun with a click. "Don't try to get into my head, Sanders. I know what you're doing. You won't get anything out of me. I know a lot more about you than you do about me."

"Oh, really?"

"Sure, Helen. Joined the police academy for about ... oh... a day, before you got kicked out for punching out the Sergeant. You could never be me."

"I would never want to."

"Oh? And where has all your do-gooding got you?" Mary asked with a chuckle. "You're sleeping with a killer, you're on the run, and you're alone." She nodded to the cuffs. "Put them on, get your things, and let's get out of here, I'm done talking."

"But we just got started."

Dylan's heart became dangerously close to bursting when the familiar voice spoke up behind her.

Instinctively, she looked back, immediately placing two women and one man who seemed to have appeared out of thin air, moving into the motel room.

Dylan fought to control the smile that loomed on her face as Natalie and Alex came to stand beside her, dark dangerous expression reserved for Mary Briggs. Anthony, walking carefully on the fringe of the activity, took a long drag of the cigarette, hawk eyes on her obsessively.

"I would keep that hand right where we can see it," Alex said softly, her veiled threat ever more effective with the small smile painted on her face. "Your gun won't be much use to you against all three of us."

"Or one of us, on a good day," Natalie said, crossing her arms.

It took Mary a moment to agree. She stayed in place, gaze zooming to the faces of each woman, before she slowly drew her hand away from her gun.

"Dylan," Alex said firmly, "We're leaving."

At this, Mary shook her head, frustration and amusement coupled on her face to create the most unusual expression. "You're insane. Do you know what you're doing? With one call I can have every cop, every FBI officer, even the CIA on your trail. Your lives would be over."

Alex stepped forward, cold steel in her face. "Would you really like to get on our bad side?"

It was no surprise that Alex could be intimidating as hell when she wanted to be. It was an especially effective gift, and had served them well the time they had to go undercover in the S&M club.

Mary's smile faltered.

"One phone call," Natalie added, all syrupy sweetness gone, even as every word was spoken with polite enthusiasm. "We could have you thrown in jail for blackmail. Obstruction of justice. Lots of fun stuff. Trust me. People owe us favors."

"We have saved the world once or twice," Dylan added, head tilting in reminiscence.

"Try thirteen," Alex said crisply, staring straight at Mary. "In the last year."

In the seconds that followed, Dylan managed to sneak one look to The Thin Man. Anthony's gaze burned into her. Settled on the bed, he was massaging at his cane, fiddling on the handle. When she narrowed her eyes in curiosity, he jerked the tip and looked meaningfully at Mary.

Dylan's eyes widened. With an emphatic jerk, she shook her head no, glaring at him for even suggesting it.

"You have no proof," Mary ventured after a moment, bringing Dylan's attention back to her.

"Do you really think we won't find any?" she asked bemusedly.

Mary grinned. Craning her neck, she studied Anthony, who sat calmly, smoking.

"You keep hanging out with a murderer, I won't need it."

And of course, then he snapped.

With a clang, the sword was out of the cane, flashing toward the cop with a deadly swing.

"ANTHONY! NO!"

The blade stopped, inches away from Mary's flesh.

It left the cop frozen, mouth dropped open in surprise as she stared wide-eyed at the blade.

Without thinking, Dylan rushed forward, leaving her friends to step in front of the trembling wild man, cane still outstretched toward Mary. With a soothing smile, Dylan placed a gentle hand on his palm, pushing slowly down until it was safely pointed toward the floor.

"It's okay," she whispered, massaging at his arms, up to his shoulders.

The smug expression disappeared from Mary's face. Beaten for now, she stood her ground, nodding her head in mock defeat.

They had time. But not for long.

"Guys?" Dylan managed, pressing palms to Anthony's cheeks, staring intensely into his eyes. "My clothes?"

"Nice boots," Alex commented, reaching down to gather one, locating the other under the bed.

"I like them," Dylan said with a wink. Alex rolled her eyes, stuffing them under her armpits, and leaning down for Dylan's jeans.

"How did your bra get all the way over here?" Natalie asked, wrinkling her nose as she plucked it from the top of a lampshade on the other side of the room.

At that comment, Alex shot Dylan a scathing glare. Dylan at least had the grace to blush.

Anthony's breath was loud, audible. His gaze shifted from glaring murderously at Mary to staring carefully at her. Slowly, delicately, he gathered her hair into his hands, coming down to press her forehead against his, breathing her in with a delicate shudder.

"Um... guys?"

Dylan broke the moment, lifting her head to find Natalie and Alex waiting impatiently at the door, her clothes and belongings gathered between the two of them.

"Sorry," Dylan said automatically. Grabbing a hold of Anthony's hand, she led him toward the door. "Let's get out of here."

"Anthony." Mary's comment was full of smug anger, and it caused the Thin Man to falter at the door. She grinned. "I'll see you soon."

Dylan didn't wait to see his reaction.

She pulled hard, moving him out the door, and trailing down the stairs after her friends.

--

In the Townsend Agency, a phone began to ring.

It rang twice, three times, a cheery sound that, when answered, came with a cheery greeting.

"Good morning, Angels!"

Bosley sat dumbly, legs splayed out on the couch, staring at the speaker phone.

"Mornin', Charlie," he said nervously.

"Bosley? Where are the Angels?"

"Well, uh... Charlie?" Bosley shifted on his seat, rubbing at the sweat that had started to pebble on his forehead. "I... maybe I should just play you the message."

"Message?" Charlie queried. "What message?"

"Uhh..." Bosley fumbled for his cellphone, beeping in numbers, and going through the prompts. "This one," he said finally, placing it close to the receiver.

"Hi guys! It's Natalie! How are you! Um... well, we found Dylan, and Mary seems to be a bit of a two-timing bitch, so... long story short? We're kinda on the run. But we'll fix it! I promise! And we'll find the bad guy, and we'll do everything we're supposed to do, we're just... kinda on the run right now, and on the freeway, and we're not supposed to talk on the cellphone on the freeway, so... we'll be in touch! Sorry, Charlie! We'll fix it, I promise!"

The phone clicked off.

Charlie was quiet, taking in Natalie's chirpy message for processing.

"Bosley?" he said finally. "Can you please explain that?"

"Uh..." Bosley scratched at his head, shrugging helplessly. "They found Dylan, they're on the run, and Mary's the bad guy?"

"Why am I no less confused?"

"Welcome to my world, Charlie," Bosley muttered. "Welcome."

--

Natalie plucked the ear plug out of her ear, handing the phone to Alex, who closed it with a snap.

The aura in the Thin Man's vehicle was decidedly tense, and this time, it wasn't from the driving.

Alex, currently engaged at staring murderously at the Thin Man tapped at his dashboard, long fingernails creating dull clicks.

The Thin Man could have cared less about her obvious annoyance. He had eyes for no one but the lost Angel they had just rescued. One hand buried in her hair, and the other slipping about her back, almost as if he was entertaining some reality where Dylan had already been lost, and he was just trying to reassure himself of her presence.

Dylan displayed a little patience for his pawing, gently pushing his hands away before shifting with a grimace. There was no time for modesty as the sheet pooled around her waist, revealing an ample bosom Natalie had always envied and a large, ugly bruise stretching down her side that made her heart ache.

Reaching for her shirt, Dylan's eyes met Natalie's in the rear view mirror.

"So," Alex asked, still tapping unconsciously in time to the music. "What now?"

Natalie's eyebrow arched as Dylan blew an uneasy breath out.

She had no idea.

--

The Dodgers were losing. Again.

Jason groaned, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration as Victor Alvarez managed once again to walk another player.

"Oh, come on!" he snapped, throwing the closest thing available (his popcorn) at the screen. "You can do better than that!"

"Tough game?"

Pete, hands in his pockets, smiled modestly as he stepped into the room.

"Pete!"

"How ya doing, man?" Pete asked, clapping hands companionably before slapping his back in a manly hug.

"Sit down, sit down!" Natalie's live-in boyfriend grinned, pulling out a chair and settling into it. Jason happily smiled back. "Can I get you something? Ice water? A soda?" He picked up a small object. "I got a little bell!" He demonstrated. "I can shake it - and the nurses will get you whatever you want."

Pete laughed. "No thanks, I'm good. Just wanted to see how you were!"

Jason sighed, motioning with frustration at the television. "Sometimes I think I'm a glutton for punishment, following these guys."

Pete glanced up at the screen. "Yeah, that is quite a gamble."

Jason shrugged. "You hear from the girls?"

"Actually why I'm here. Natalie asked me to take the day off, spend it with you."

Jason's brow wrinkled. "What," he chuckled. "Like a babysitter?"

"More like a bodyguard," Pete corrected.

Jason laughed harder. "You?"

"Hey, I know some moves!" Pete replied, striking a pose. "Had to, to learn to keep up with Natalie."

Jason shook his head in morose amusement. "I know what you mean. I can't tell you where I'd be if it wasn't for the safety word." Pete grinned, and Jason blinked, suddenly remembering where he was. "Right," he mumbled, picking at his thin hospital gown. "No better off, I guess."

"You'll be allright," Pete said warmly. "I'm sure Alex would be here herself if they weren't out doing their thing."

"Charlie?"

"No, actually." Scratching his head in confusion, Pete shrugged helplessly. "More like 'Dylan'."

"Dylan?"

Nodding, Pete helped himself to a kernel of popcorn. "Well, you heard she went rogue on them."

"Alex mentioned something, didn't seem to want to elaborate."

"Yeah. Fell for a guy."

"The bad guy?"

"Yeap."

Jason nodded absently. "Yeap, sounds like her- NO!" He groaned, shaking his fist at the television as the bases were loaded with a particularly lucky single.

"So they went after her, found her, but there's this crooked cop-"

"Mary?" Jason asked, eyes on the television.

"Yeap."

"Yeah. She was definitely shady. Oh, yeah!" he grinned as the catcher crashed into the batter, yelling gleefully as the umpire declared him out. He pumped hands up in the air, then immediately lowered them as he winced, holding his side. "Ouch."

Pete grabbed another kernel of popcorn. "They're on the run now."

Jason finally glanced away from the television. "What, all of them?"

"Yeap."

Jason blinked, shaking his head. "Tell me something, you ever think your girlfriend might be a little crazy?"

Pete shrugged, taking in a relaxed sigh. He had given it some thought, and after that went nowhere, he simply settled for washing his hands of the whole thing. "Sometimes. Then I figure since I'm crazy about her, we're just a little even."

"Nice," Jason said, grinning.

"Yeap." Pete and Jason exchanged a high-five.

They both fell silent, watching the game.

"Dylan's new guy. Maybe we should make him feel welcome next time we see him."

Pete, engrossed in the game, nodded enthusiastically a few minutes later. "Yeah! Sure. Invite him to a barbeque."

Jason nodded, passing the bowl. Pete grabbed a handful.

"Wait." Jason blinked. "Do bad guys like barbeques?"

Pete considered. "You know, I don't know."

They stared at each other.

Finally both shrugged, and turned back to the game.

--

There was about five minutes of silence, as each Angel tried to gather their thoughts.

Dylan's only sounds were hisses and jolts, as Anthony, still engaged in the weirdest behavior Alex had seen since the day they met, now tried in his awkward gentlemanly finesse, to help Dylan get dressed.

It was with effort that Dylan's bra went on, cramped in the small backseat with the top up, followed by the shirt. He was rough and gentle at the same time, an odd combination. With intense, angry eyes, he slipped on the shirt, pulling her fingers through it, and pulling it into place hard.

It reminded Alex of pulling off a band-aid; harsh and painful, but done as fast as possible so it would only hurt for a second.

Natalie eyes on the road, flickered her gaze up to the rear view mirror, and noted Dylan's ribs with a frown.

"Are you okay?" she ventured finally.

Dylan glanced up in mid-grimace, locked in a weird pseudo embrace with Anthony, as she attempted to get her pants on. Natalie's eyes were almost liquid, top lip bitten in nervous anticipation.

"I'm fine," Dylan said after a moment. "I've had broken ribs before."

Alex glanced nervously between her two friends, while the Thin Man appeared to not have heard them at all, choosing instead to probe fingers at Dylan's rib cage, as if to ensure himself of that- not trusting Dylan to do it for herself.

"Yeah," Natalie agreed, voice somewhat husky. "But never from me."

Dylan paused, face unreadable for one, tense moment. With a pursed mouth, she twisted in the seat, moving with some effort over Anthony's lap to place a palm on Natalie's shoulder, squeezing gently as she slapped at Anthony's attempts to button her fly.

"Natalie," she said firmly. "Stop. It's okay."

Natalie trembled, but one hand lifted off the wheel to squeeze Dylan's palm, holding it to her face for a quick kiss against her fingertips.

When Dylan's eyes met Alex's, the Asian smiled tightly, reaching for the other hand, locking fingers.

Yes, shit went down and it was still going down, but in this car, in this moment – it was Dylan, Nat and Alex again.

That's all that mattered.

"Oww! Anthony!"

Dylan let go, forced to snap behind her, breaking the moment. Alex shuddered, eyes shifting back towards the road.

Well... it was all that mattered right that second.

Dylan, apparently, had been pinched in the side by the man in whose lap she was so cozily sitting. Alex snuck another glance. The more she got to know the deadly man, the more he came off as a bit of a brat. It seemed, he was miffed at being ignored.

Dylan certainly had an odd way of dealing with the seasoned killer.

She simply pinched him back hard, shook her head at him in a firm 'no' and smacked him lightly on the shoulder, as she would a misbehaving little boy.

_Oh, Geez._

Alex's head zipped straight back to the front.

"So..." Dylan sounded nervous, now fully dressed and running one of Alex's combs through her wild hair, trying to get it under control as she settled against the Thin Man's chest.

There was an obvious intimacy in that gesture that made Alex unconsciously suck in her breath, tighten her grip on the handle of the passenger side door. She supposed that there was really no reason to hide that fact that Dylan had... for lack of a better word, screwed him from Natalie and her. It was startlingly obvious what had happened the night before, what with Dylan being plain naked when they entered, and the Thin Man acting like a deadly little rottweiler who had just been returned to his owner, afraid to lose his grip for more than a second.

Dylan had always been free with her sexual lifestyle, less reserved in every respect than Alex, and most of the time Alex envied that of her.

But this was still The Thin Man, a bonafide sociopath. And he was still quite possibly, more than likely, and really, really convincingly, a killer. He just wasn't ... available for sex. Or any hint of sex. And Dylan had made with the sex.

It still unnerved her. Quite a bit.

One look at Natalie told her she was feeling something quite similar.

"Do you guys believe me now?" she asked finally.

Alex, shaky in her reaction, twisted as well as she could in her seatbelt, trying to be as frank as possible.

"Well... no."

"Dylan," Natalie spoke up, voice firm now, "We weren't really thinking when we kinda ran after you with Anthony, but since we're all in this together now..."

"Look," Alex added, through gritted teeth, "He went with us to save you without thinking twice," she said, nodding to the man who might as well have been bristling at them both, rumbles covered by Dylan's body. "And if he's capable of that without trying to kill us, and since no one has died since he's been in your company, then we're at least willing to explore the option."

The beauty of Dylan's relieved, unrestricted smile alone was worth the consideration and effort it took for Alex to spit out the words.

"We still need proof, Dylan," Natalie said evenly, making an easy right that led them onto the freeway. "There's just too much of it going the other way-"

"Well, we know Mary's working for Seamus," Dylan said uneasily.

Alex blinked, narrowing her eyes as she leaned back over. "How do we know that?" Her eyes unconsciously went to The Thin Man's fingers, stroking Dylan's nape absently. Morbidly, Alex kept waiting for that inevitable pull.

"The lighter," Dylan said, apparently unconcerned about the possible assault on her red tresses. Instead, she sucked in her breath, eyes widening in some realization, before she slumped against his chest, palm slapping to her forehead. "She still has my lighter!"

"The lighter you lost?" Natalie asked, glancing up at the rear view mirror.

"Anthony stole it," Dylan explained, grabbing The Thin Man's hand as she attempted enunciate her point, slapping at it with each word. Her green/gray eyes flashed to meet his impassive face for a second, before she glanced back at her friends. "He gave it to me at the funeral, and I didn't know what he was saying with-"

"You knew he was there and you didn't tell us?"

"Alex," Natalie began, a warning note in her tone. Alex glanced over, and Natalie's message was clear. 'We just got her back. Don't start.'

"Sorry," Alex said, snapping her mouth shut.

Dylan swallowed, but at Natalie's nod, continued. "Anyway – that's what he was saying! In there, Mary saw it and said it was hers! The one who stole it first was Seamus! Back when he beat me in the alley!"

"That's just..." Alex licked her lips, frowning in her attempt to process the information. "Is there anything else?"

"She called me Helen," Dylan said matter-of-factly. Natalie's eyes widened, mouth dropping in an 'o'.

"Well," she said after a moment, "That's it, then."

"Good place to start," Alex agreed. "She did purposely lighten the security around the funeral and Jason's place."

Despite the attempt to be objective about it, a trace of her emotion must have gotten away from her, because both Natalie and Dylan kept their searching gazes on her longer than necessary. Alex swallowed, keeping her face stiff.

"I've got Pete over there," Natalie said soothingly. "At least we've got someone with him."

"Thanks," Alex said after a minute, smiling briefly at Natalie's reassuring pat.

Dylan, looking oddly guilty, only gave her a grave nod.

She was still looking out the window, absently playing with Anthony's fingers, when Natalie, after exchanging a nod with Alex, took a breath. "Dylan..."

Dylan blinked, brought back to earth. "Yeah."

"We still have a problem. There's just... too much evidence against Anthony."

Dylan's eyes narrowed, just as Anthony's jaw ticked.

It was a critical moment. Chances were, now that Dylan officially had a human band-aid in the form of a Creepy Thin Guy, they wouldn't get her alone until this was over.

And despite Anthony's obvious somewhat disturbing affection for Dylan, there was still... actions that needed to be addressed, and Dylan deserved to hear them.

Alex taking in a breath, took it over, voice almost apologetic as she kept her eyes on Dylan, purposely blocking the Thin Man out.

"The ballistic reports, the ones you were running?" Dylan gave an uneasy nod. "They came out positive."

Anthony didn't move.

The implications of that were measurable, and Dylan caught that immediately. At first, Dylan's face was unreadable. Then her eyes, previously blank, slowly darkened with awareness.

She wasn't subtle when she untangled her fingers from his, leaning forward with a grimace. "Do you have the results with you?"

Natalie shook her head, almost timid, in the palpable tension that had taken over the car. "Alex got there, and..."

"Anthony destroyed the reports," Alex finished. "The computer, the monitor – it's all gone."

It was damning. There was no way to change that, no way to see around it, and even now, Alex found a part of her wanted desperately, if only for Dylan's sake, to find a way to justify this, justify him.

But she saw, what she saw. And Dylan, mind rapidly forming her conclusions with every passing second, bore a passive face that was quickly turning to stone.

He must have seen it. There must have been something he had felt in Dylan's posture, because he knew when he lost his hold on her, he knew the second it happened.

Alex expected retaliation. She just didn't realize it would come about the way it did.

He completely lost control. His anger came in the form of a high pitched murderous scream, as he pushed toward the front, arms outstretched, reaching for her with every intention of strangling her.

"Dylan!"

But Dylan was already there, gritting her teeth to hold her place in the moving car, pushing at the off-balance assassin into the corner of the seat, and with the flick of a wrist, flashed a blade to his throat.

It was a terrible moment. Natalie swerved, ignoring the honks of the cars as she slid across four lanes of traffic to the only open shoulder on the crowded freeway. Alex, seat belt long torn off, was in a half seated, half crouched position, fully prepared to jump over if need be.

Dylan's expression was a haunting mix of fury and hurt.

Her eyes, blurry with tears, sparkled like jaded diamonds, her mouth trembled open, and there was a glint in her features that made the Thin Man suddenly hold still.

In that moment, Dylan would have killed him had he tried to fight back.

She tried to overcome herself. Her knife was placed deliberately just under his chin, in the place it would do the most harm, clipping at the artery. Her other hand wrapped around his neck, pinning him against the seat with a choking hold that had to be bruising his larynx.

"You lied to me," she whispered furiously. "You lied to me, and I believed you. Even when you tried to kill my friends I believed you."

He breathed heavily, nostrils flaring as he glared at her, like a dog cornered in an alley.

"And you were playing me all along," she whispered.

"Dylan," Natalie whispered. "Dylan, don't-"

"No, Nat- You were right," Dylan said crisply. Her voice, stained with tears, was uneven, too emotional to match the matter-of-fact words that were coming out of her now. "You were absolutely right. He's the bad guy."

"Dylan – he came with us to save you..." Alex couldn't quite believe that she actually defending his honor. "Creepy Thin Guy! Say something!"

He didn't. His gaze was infuriatingly defiant. It was an intense moment, Dylan's blade twitching against his skin, his chest rising and falling in angry gasps.

Suddenly he kicked out. Dylan flew back, and the car top was shredded by a blade disguised as a cane.

"Anthony!"

He was gone, vaulting over car hoods and flipping over the screeching vehicles as if he were Spiderman.

"Let's go!" Alex snapped, reaching for the car door.

"NO!" Natalie snapped. She held out both hands, keeping her friends in their places. "No. If he's not the guy, we have to prove it. If he is the guy, then going after Seamus will lead us to him. We can't get distracted. Right now there's not time."

Alex took in a slow, unsteady gulp of air, craning her neck back as she sat in his own abandoned car.

Frank Sinatra crooned softly on the radio, speaking of the gloriousness of love, the spell that had been placed over his heart.

And Dylan, angry tears splashing across her cheeks, merely wiped them off, clipping the knife back in her belt, settling back into the now empty seat with a wince.

"Fine," she began in a low, broken voice. "Let's go after Seamus."

Natalie, eyes sparkling with moisture, nodded, placing on her blinker dutifully as she pulled back into the traffic, leaving the Thin Man behind.

--

She found him two blocks away from the docks, standing in the shadows like a kicked dog, shivering in the rain and holding onto his cane as if it was all he had left.

Mary Briggs grinned. She was dripping wet, but at this point, she was past caring.

Holstering her weapon, she splashed her way to him, stopping a few feet away.

"Well," she began. "That didn't take long."

He looked up at her, blue eyes dark and hooded, staring at her as if he hated her. He was openly trembling, crouched against the brick wall, absorbed in what appeared to be a wet lump of dark red hair, plastered against his face.

"Aww, what's a matter?" she asked, settling on her haunches and moving a hand to his hair.

He slapped it away, hissing angrily.

"Fine, geez." Rising, she settled hands in her pockets. "What happened, baby. She found out? Now that's she's got her friends back, she doesn't need a little killer like you?"

He roared to his feet, hands on the handle of his cane, ready to strike.

"Oh, stop it. You almost had me convinced back at that motel, but this is just stupid." Mary shook her head, wiping her dripping tendrils from her face to blink through the droplets of rain. He swallowed, jaw set, eyes wild and blue. Mary blinked. "You would have, wouldn't you? You would have killed me. You were that scared." Her mouth dropped open in astonishment. "You thought that just because she screwed you she was going to not choose her friends? Please. History repeats itself, and if you haven't learned from your bosses, your slutty red-head will screw the bad guys, and then she has this funny habit of trying to kill them."

He was as still as a statue, face frozen in a deadly glare.

She grinned, features lighting up her face. "Oh, Anthony, you poor dear. You would have killed me out of sheer desperation because you were afraid she'd find out?" She considered. "You know we got reports of the Townsend Lab being ransacked - a whole room destroyed. That was you, too, wasn't it? You sick son of a bitch. Listen up – You're a killer. She's an Angel. They don't play with demons, they destroy them." She slapped at his head, and once again he screeched angrily. She laughed, jumping back. "Get your ass back to your boss, Anthony. He's been looking for you. Oh, and Anthony?" she paused, wiping rain from her face to give him her full smirk. "He heard about last night. And he's not happy."

She walked away, shaking her head in amusement as the Creepy Thin Man stood, drenched, lost, and deadly.

**End chapter twelve**


	13. Chapter Thirteen: The Thin Line

**Chapter Thirteen: The Thin Line**

There were times when Mary wondered what the hell she was doing.

Mary had long ago discovered that she wasn't immortal. Her partner was killed after only two years on the beat in a random jaywalking incident. When she made detective, she was shot in a bank robbery, and spent three days in the hospital, fighting her way back from a concussion.

Most detectives she had known never had to pull their guns. For some reason, she pulled hers at least three times a week. Trouble seemed to follow her wherever she went, and Mary long since gave up the reasoning that it was because she was 'just lucky'.

It came to a point where she had to come to a decision - to either play with the devil or die trying to fight him.

There were instances where she was almost completely sure she had made the right choice, and there were times when she was completely freaked out that she had committed the worst sin imaginable.

Walking free and unmolested inside Seamus O'Grady's compound was definitely a perk. The Townsend Sweethearts, as Mary had come to mentally refer to the three little supermodels, were mostly responsible for the utter size of it.

The O'Grady clan, in fact the entire Irish mob, had managed to remain on top for the simple reason that, in one swoop, however unintentionally, Charlie's Angels had completely crippled every other major crime family in Los Angeles.

Naturally, that pissed them off - but so far, no other mafia, mob, or gangsters had come close to touching the girls or their halos.

Except for Seamus.

He was special.

And he scared the shit out of her.

Seamus O'Grady was, for lack of a better term, hot as hell. She figured it was because the guy was the devil. He had no soul that she could sense, no feelings of guilt, or anything really but hate. He didn't seem human, in his ability to feel so little, and then feel so much.

Her apathy, she figured, must have come from him. As long as Mary didn't care, she was safe from him, from the clan. The minute she started questioning, the minute she started caring, she was dead.

So despite the fact that she was more or less allowing the murders of a bunch of pampered celebrities take place under her very nose, in a series of intentional mistakes that could very well cost her her job and a possible investigation by the FBI, Mary was certainly quite willing to go along with Seamus' well thought out plan of destruction.

Of course there were a couple snags along the way.

Mary paused in the doorway of what had to be the ugliest office on the bloody ship.

Seamus O'Grady, in his too tight 'stuck in the eighties and loving it' jeans, was bare chested. Muscles rippled as he spat angrily into the phone, so pissed off that his thick accent made his words almost indistinguishable.

Mary quirked an eyebrow, glancing back to Paddy, who merely stuffed another cigarette into his mouth and shrugged, walking away from her.

"Thanks," she muttered. "Great help, you Irish thug."

Seamus turned, found her, and motioned with a quick jerk, turning away and snarling again. "Ah don care what yer feelin', you bloody git. You do what ah tell ya, and finish what ya started, or I'll finish you." He slammed the phone into the cradle, nearly growling as she stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

"Fun day at the office?" she quipped, settling down in a dingy metal chair.

"Fucking bastard," he muttered. "That's the trouble with psychos nowadays," he added. "Always goin' crazy on ya, goin' after what isn't theirs."

She smirked. "Speaking of which, seen your little assassin today?"

He glared. "Which one?"

She laughed. "Whichever."

"I see him, I'll kill him," Seamus snapped. "I'll rip the little bastard apart."

The pure rage in his face settled a cold ice in Mary's stomach. She shifted uncomfortably. "Well then," she said with forced carelessness. "Thank Goodness for cell phones."

"You done?" he said, settling onto the desk and pulling out a gun. "Or are ya waiting just a wee bit 'til I'm good and murderous on ya?"

Okay, he wasn't in the mood. She understood that. Swallowing hard, she straightened, wiping the smirk off her face, and attempting to look a little serious.

"I'm done," she said. "What do you want?"

"Lighten up security on that hospital wing that fruit is stayin' at. I'm sending in our boy."

It was a statement, final, not open to discussion.

She suddenly didn't care. "Are you crazy?" she said breathlessly. His eyes narrow, mouth twisted at the reaction. "Do you know how much trouble I could get in for that? James LeGros is already riding on my ass to get this taken away from me-"

"How is that my problem?"

"-Not to mention that one of your little Angels kinda has a personal investment that could get my ass kic-"

"I HAVE A PERSONAL INVESTMENT!" he shouted, slapping an angry palm on his table that rattled the room, and created a jumpstart in her body that nearly drove her off the chair. She didn't have time to recover before the gun was plucked off the table and suddenly he had a palm wrapped around her neck, the cold muzzle of the weapon buried against her temple.

Mary didn't dare move. Her eyes lolled to the back of her head, throat closed in complete fear, and the moist hotness of his breath spread chills throughout her body.

"Listen to me," he whispered, lips moving over her ear. "She's mine. No one takes her but me. You do what I say, or that little Asian bitch is the last thing you have to worry about. You got it, love?"

She closed her eyes, taking in a gasping breath as she tried to regain control of her mind long enough to answer.

"I got it," she said uneasily. "I got it."

Suddenly the gun was removed. Sweating, freaked, Mary glanced over to find Seamus looking completely sane. He smiled merrily, patting her shoulder as he tossed the gun on the table. "Good. Have a go, then, Mary."

Slapping roughly at her head, he grabbed his shirt off the rack above her, and headed out of the office, shouting something to one of his merry henchmen.

Mary's fingers clamped tightly around the handles of her chair, eyes closed as she tried desperately to stop trembling.

She had made the deal. Seamus was her devil. She was never coming out of this alive. She just had to deal, shut up, and follow orders.

Opening her eyes, Mary raised unsteadily to her feet, moving for her cellphone as she shakily began to punch in numbers.

"You know, I just don't think that guy's entirely stable," she muttered.

--

Going back to the laboratory wasn't exactly the smartest thing that the Angels could do.

But it was honestly, the only option.

Returning to the Townsend Agency would have meant dealing not only with a bewildered Bosley, but with Charlie, and despite the girls strength, the hold their boss had on them was too strong.

Natalie knew, that even without a face to the voice, Charlie could change their minds with a simple command – one that everyone would follow, despite their own objections.

"Allright," Alex said, coming through the door of the plastics department (normally used by the girls to make anything from prosthetic faces to bombs). "I've got the tapes," she announced, hefting through a box of tapes and plopping them on the dusty table Dylan and Natalie were currently leaning against. "We can each take one, track the movements, see where Seamus is."

"I already know where he is," Dylan said irately. The red-head, remarkably silent since the incident in the car, now spoke with a flat, testy monotone. "He's at the Merkin."

Natalie, after a wary glance at Alex, smiled with forced ease. "Dylan, I don't know-"

"I do," Dylan snapped. "Look, he's still got the same agenda – me. He wouldn't move because he knew that eventually, I would want to find him-"

"Dylan-"

"Guys! Trust me. I know Seamus." Rubbing a palm through her hair, she gave a slight grimace, pushing down onto the floor. "Just get me those plans and I can figure out a way in."

"Dylan, the last time we went in there we barely got out alive." Alex spoke quietly, almost delicately, as if she were carefully attempting to handle a wounded animal.

Dylan considered, moving a hand to her chest, and suddenly stilling, feeling around. Without a word, her face hardened, fingers pulling around the object and yanking hard.

Natalie understood certain truths about Dylan. She hated to be pitied. She didn't mind a good joke, even if it was at her expense. She hated Alex's whip more than anything in the world, and her heart, when given, was total and complete.

Her rage, when angered – ran just as pure.

Dylan's anger now was slowly simmering, coming to a boil beneath her skin. Natalie could see it in the stiff movements, in the way Dylan was still physically struggling to keep it all in – soon, she wouldn't be able to handle the pain, and then she would either let it out completely in one violent swoop or completely shut it down, replacing it with numbness.

It scared her that she didn't know which way she was going.

Alex, always confrontational, and the first to tease Dylan with her 'I told you so's had experienced that herself – when it came to Jason.

Maybe that was why she was walking on eggshells.

But Dylan saw the glances, and it didn't help.

"Oh, trust me," she snapped, "We're the only ones coming out of that place alive."

The medallion she tore off landed on the table with a dull clang. She pushed away from it and went for the door, leaving Alex and Natalie alone.

"I'm going to kill that guy if I see him again," Alex said after a minute.

"She's had her heart broken before," Natalie said in a low voice, trying to be optimistic as she carefully sorted the tapes.

Alex was quiet, arms crossed as she stared thoughtfully at the door. "No," she said finally. "Not like this. Dylan gave everything up for him, Natalie. This was different."

She met Natalie's gaze, and lip quivering, Natalie didn't want to admit she agreed.

It was true. The Thin Man had ripped apart something in Dylan that no one had ever reached, and she didn't understand why or how it happened.

Dylan was broken, inside and out, and Natalie didn't understand how that could happen to a person like Dylan, with her big beautiful heart, and her warm, radiant smile.

Natalie didn't take emotion lightly, and even now, her objectivity and positive outlook was starting to fade.

She didn't know what she would do if she saw Anthony again, and for that reason she prayed that they found a way to get out of this thing with Seamus with some answer – something ELSE.

"She'll get through it," she said finally. "We'll help her."

"I just hope we can," Alex said wistfully.

The door slammed open, kicked at by a boot, and the moisture in Natalie's throat evaporated as she saw Dylan enter with a gun.

When both she and Alex stared with flabbergasted expressions, a stone-faced Dylan replied, "Just in case."

She snapped the clasp, and the bullets locked into place.

--

Jason's enthusiasm of the game had withered when the Dodgers went from a 4-2 lead to a 10-4 loss.

The post game show was depressing, but too lazy to turn it off, and unable to find the report, he let it blare on at him, discussing missed opportunities and the upsets that came with it.

"Hey," Pete called.

Jason turned, nodding in despair. "They lost."

"Yeah?" Pete answered, coming in with a backpack over his shoulder, placing it down carefully and shrugging off his jacket.

"I think you were bad luck," Jason said suspiciously. "As soon as you left they all just... you know – sucked."

"They do that anyway," Pete said good-naturedly.

"Yeah? Well, look at this." Jason rang his little bell loudly. Pete looked up expectantly. "That's right! No one's coming!"

"Really?" Hands on his waist, Pete glanced back at the hallway. "I thought it looked a little empty."

"Yeah, well – I'm starving. A man's gotta eat!"

Pete smiled sympathetically, palms waving in apologies. "Let me see what I can get for you," he said good-naturedly. "But first – I brought you a surprise."

Jason perked up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Sneaking a peak over his shoulder, he gently lifted the backpack.

It squirmed and gave a yip.

Jason yelped, moving back. "What's that?"

Pete grinned, unzipping the bag to reveal a golden puppy, wagging it's tail furiously, and erupting in barks. "It's Spike!"

"SPIKE! BUDDY!" Jason looked genuinely surprised, arms outstretched as the dog struggled to get out of the over-sized bag.

"Hang on, hang on," Pete said, chuckling. He pulled the furry body out fully, just in time for Spike to finagle his way out of his arms, and land with a thump on Jason's bed.

"OOMPH! OUCH!" Despite the pain, Jason hugged the shimmying dog to him, laughing as Spike began to lick him on every square inch of his face. "Hey, buddy!" Jason sighed happily, petting the little head. "I wanted a dog, Alex said there was no chance in hell."

"Well..." Pete, ever optimistic, reasoned, "You're not with Alex anymore."

At that, he received a dirty look. "Hey! Don't jinx it. I'd prefer Alex over a dog any day." He rubbed a noogie into Spike's face.

Pete chuckled. "Yah, you know I think she kinda loves you too."

Jason nodded in agreement. "Only took getting shot for her to realize it," he drifted off thoughtfully. "Maybe the next time we fight, we can hire a guy to-"

"Okay, enough!" Pete shook his head, ambling toward the door. "I'm going to round up a nurse. You're talking insane."

"I'm an actor!" Jason called after him. "That's what we are!"

In the hallway, Pete glanced back and forth. "Where is everyone?" he asked himself. The guard's chair was mysteriously empty. The rooms on either side of Jason's private wing were locked. There were no nurses, no doctors...

"Weird," he said.

Walking toward the exit, he glanced at the vending machine.

"Hmm..." Shrugging, he dug into his pockets. "Might as well get him a little something to stave him..." Jason, at the last Angels barbeque, had single-handedly eaten the entire potato salad. It had nearly caused a fistfight between him and Dylan.

He had two dimes in the machine, and was scrounging around the quarters necessary for the Baked Lays, two explosions ripped through the air. Spike's bark suddenly echoed in the hallway, panicked and angry.

Pete glanced up, motions frozen as the dog continued to growl, yelping once as something suddenly tipped over.

The change clattered to the floor.

"Jason!"

Pete sprinted, heart in his throat as he slid on the linoleum, catching himself on the wooden doorway to swing inside the hospital room belonging to his friend.

Spike growled menacingly on sheets blotched red, paws digging into Jason's body, and at the edge, facing the now broken window, was a thin man in a suit, holding onto a bloody sword.

"HEY!" Fumbling for his waist, Pete pulled at the tranquilizer gun, pointing it angrily at the man.

But the man with the striking blue eyes only glared at him, before a chair was flung in his direction.

Pete ducked, the tip of the chair clipping the flat of his palms protecting his head, but nothing more.

When he stood, the man had disappeared.

"Jason!" Dropping the gun, Pete came forward, finding Jason with a bruise on his temple, his sheets splattered with blood, and his eyes closed.

--

"We're not taking that with us."

That came from Alex. The brunette Angel had her arms crossed, her voice was flat and final, but her eyes were wide and pleading.

"Dylan-"

"Guys - look at me." Dylan spread her arms out wide, motioning to her entire body. "I can't do this without some sort of aide-"

"Then bring a sword, or a staff - but not the gun," Natalie said, voice aching and severe. "Anything but the gun."

"You know why Charlie-"

"I'm not Madison," Dylan snapped. Her palms gripped the end of the table, as if by attempting to break it in half, she'd get some sort of control over herself. With a shuddering sigh, she began again, this time in lower, shakier voice. "Seamus wants me there to kill me. If I go in there, the way I am now - I'll get my ass kicked. You know that. I can barely beat Seamus when I'm at full strength, and he knows about my ribs. He won't hesitate..." Dylan swallowed hard. "And... Ant- The Thin Man knows too..."

"Then don't go," Alex replied easily.

Dylan threw her friend a scathing glare. "Don't ever ask me that again."

Alex bit her lip and looked away, stuck, just like Natalie. There was no way out of this. Dylan needed to go. She had to in order to find any sort of closure to the chaos that was enveloping her now.

But with a gun? An object that so easily signified murder?

The ringing of a cellphone distracted the tense moment, and Natalie was glad for it, immediately looking away to grab her phone off her hip.

"Hello?" The voice was grainy, and Natalie had to squint, free hand against her ear in order to fully hear him. "Pete? You're all grainy."

Static came at her from the receiver. She winced, shrugging helplessly when both Dylan and Alex cast her questioning looks. "--Jason -- shots-- Thin Guy with--- word--"

"Oh, God," she whispered. Her eyes closed, and her breath sucked in.

"--Alive --- blood--"

Her eyes widened, and suddenly he was gone. "PETE?! PETE!?"

"What happened?" Alex demanded, arms dropping, and face suddenly alive with panic.

Natalie struggled to speak. "It's... Jason. Something happened - Pete said something about the Thin Man-"

In the next instant Alex was grabbing her keys, heading toward the door. "Alex!"

"I'll meet you there!"

"I'm going, too," Dylan said, palm wrapping around her leather jacket, making an effort to shrug it on without pain.

"No." Natalie swallowed hard when both women looked at her with so much obvious anger, but she stuck to her guns. By some miracle, both women had been listening when she gave orders – not exactly new – but certainly placing her in a leadership position that hadn't always been constant.

But with Dylan's ribs and her certain mental state, and Alex's obvious worry about Jason, it seemed only logical that she, objective in her emotional state, would make the decisions.

Except that she wasn't.

Natalie's blood simmered and her heart ached. What Alex felt, she felt. When Dylan cried, she cried. It was a peculiar gift that came with her rather enormous heart, and at this moment, she wished more than anything that she could throw objectivity to the side and just FEEL.

"Look," she said finally. "Pete said Jason's okay. Whatever happened is obviously over. Alex," she began with a nod in her direction. "You go over there, see if you can find anything-"

"Natalie-"

"Dylan and I will head over to the Merkin. We'll do some reconnaissance and get ourselves set up. It's the only way," she insisted, when both her friends opened their mouths to argue. "Alex can look for the clues – Dylan can't go by herself, and we need to go after Seamus as soon as possible. If Mary knows- Seamus knows. We can't afford to wait."

Dylan's lips pursed. She was clearly affected by the news of the attack, but logic, once again, had managed to overrule her.

Digging her heels into the floor, she jerked around, muttering something about grabbing the vests and exited the room.

Alex paused midway in putting on her own jacket.

"Can you do it alone?" Natalie asked uneasily.

"Of course I can," Alex said crisply. "But that's not why you didn't let her go." She stared at Natalie a bit longer than necessary, before sighing, and pulling her hair out from under the jacket's collar. "I suppose she really couldn't do much against the Thin Man," she said under her breath. "I mean...with what happened-"

"No," Natalie interrupted. "That's not it. I'm not afraid that Dylan won't be able to hurt him. I'm afraid Dylan will kill him."

Alex's movements faltered. She gave it some thought before she shrugged and said crisply, "And that's bad because?" She tossed her hair, pulling open the door. "I'll meet you at the docks."

She left Natalie alone, with Dylan's gun as an ominous set piece.

--

Dylan was completely aware she was acting like a stone-cold bitch.

A part of her almost felt sorry for it.

She refused to give into the guilt. To even allow one minute feeling of sympathy would open the floodgates of a deeper emotion that, now bottled and shaken, would cause her to explode.

Even now, the pain that creased in her from trying to hold it in made it harder to breathe than ever before.

She couldn't feel it right now. She couldn't sit down and analyze why exactly it cut her to even think about him – about anything and everything that had happened to her, to him, to them.

He had made love to her.

She shuddered, taking in another breath to the cork of her throat and pushed open the door, dragging three vests with her.

"Got them," she said crisply to a waiting Natalie. She ignored Natalie's figure, the way her friend wrapped long arms around her as if that was the only thing holding her together. She knew Natalie.

Natalie would want to talk.

"We should head over the pier and set up a vantage point," she said quickly, dumping the vests on the table. "And um..."

"Put on the vests?" Natalie asked quietly.

Dylan swallowed hard. Her eyes glanced down at her shirt.

Her black shirt that required her to pull it over her shoulders.

Anthony had helped her pull it off-

"Here." Natalie came forward. Her eyes were curiously moist, and she had only the hint of a smile as she pulled deftly at Dylan's shirt. "You sure you wanna do this?"

"As sure as I want to use my gun," Dylan responded evenly.

Natalie actually winced at that.

Dylan glanced away, taking a moment to breathe before she gave a hesitant nod.

Immediately Natalie pulled up. The action sparked her side, hot pain flaring over her body, and unable to hold in the pain, Dylan whimpered.

A lone tear slipped from Dylan's eye as she suddenly grabbed hold of Natalie's elbow, fingers gripping so hard Natalie's skin grew white around them.

"Okay, hold on," Natalie whispered. Quickly, she zipped on the vest, carefully to not press her ribs too much. "Might work," she added gently. "Kinda like another brace."

Dylan grimaced, but said nothing, mouth twitching as she grabbed her shirt.

"Okay," Natalie said after a minute. "Here we go. You ready?"

"Yeah," Dylan said, voice tight with pain and frustration. "Just... now," she pleaded. "Just get it over with."

After a long, searching gaze, Natalie did, taking pity on her and jerking the shirt down Dylan's arms.

The pain consumed her, and suddenly, Dylan couldn't hold it in anymore.

The shirt came down, and Dylan shuddered, crumpling against Natalie. Her arms went around her desperately, burying her face into Natalie's beautiful blonde hair.

"Oh, God," she whispered in broken sobs. "Oh, God, Natalie..."

"Shhh..." Natalie's lips brushed against her skin, feather light, a simple caressed that produced the most delicate of trembles from her friend. Her palms gently rubbed at Dylan's spine, massaging lightly. "It's okay, honey-"

Dylan squeezed desperately, her full weight on her slender friend, and not giving one damn. The tears came in a large torrent, moistening her friend's black shod shoulder, but Natalie never pulled away. Her fingers threaded through Dylan's neck, and for the longest time, she just held her, without judgment, without logic.

It seemed an eternity that Dylan clung to her buoy. Once, she tried to let go, but found herself drowning away, clutching at Natalie and sobbing into her neck yet again.

Natalie's patience was never ending. She kissed her temple gently, and whispered over and over that it would be okay.

It was a lie, but coming from Natalie, Dylan found herself wanting to believe it.

It was what finally allowed her to gain her foothold. Dylan found herself on dry land once more, as the tears began to ebb, and she finally found the courage to pull away, stare into the moist blue eyes, which, to her surprise, had been shedding tears alongside her.

"Thanks," Dylan said finally, gently stepping out of Natalie's arm, and attempting to move to the table.

"Dylan." Natalie's hesitant pronouncement of her name stopped her in her tracks. "Talk to me."

Dylan's vision was blurred, her eyes stung. But she still saw the gun, and her clothes still stank of acrid cigarette smoke that would now forever be associated with a different shade of blue orbs, a cruel, thin mouth.

She turned back.

"You know," she began finally. "Seamus told me in that alley, he said that I wouldn't truly understand what it meant to be him, until I had lost everything. Until I was completely alone..." she managed a grim smile, blinking through the drying tears. "He knew what he was doing-"

"He's wrong," Natalie snapped firmly. "You haven't lost everything. You have me. You have Alex. You won't ever lose us. He's wrong, Dylan."

Almost patronizingly, Dylan nodded, laughing dryly as she sniffled once, wiping at the moisture in her eyes. "Sure. You're right. But he was right about one thing."

Natalie's jaw ticked, waiting on pins and needles for Dylan's statement. It seemed, she was almost afraid.

Dylan's fingers closed around the gun.

"I hate him, Natalie. I never knew the meaning of the word until now. I hate him enough to kill him." She clipped the gun onto her belt, just on the small of her back. "Let's go."

Something died in Natalie. Dylan saw it in her eyes, and she almost regretted walking by her friend so callously.

Natalie had done nothing to deserve it, and when Dylan regained her senses, she would hate herself for it.

Right now, however, it didn't seem to matter.

Nothing did.

Because that part of Dylan was already dead.

_End chapter._


	14. Chapter Fourteen: Dead Man Walking

**Chapter Fourteen: Dead Man Walking**

The entrance to the Kaiser Hospital on Sunset Boulevard was completely swamped with reporters.

Mary Briggs pushed her car door open, face clipped with a tight frown, blazer swinging open to reveal glimpses of a standard police issued revolver nestled against her hip. A particularly nosy reporter from NBC spotted her first.

"Briggs! Mary Briggs!"

"Shit," she whispered, steps faltering as she and the other uniformed officers suddenly found themselves swarmed by an army of cameras flashing and people bearing microphones.

"Ms. Briggs! What's your statement!"

"Have you been able to determine the identity of the Celebrity Sniper?"

"Is the FBI investigating a possible security breach?"

"Get them out of my sight," Mary hissed, pushing a brown-haired cop in front of her as she shouldered her way through the crowd.

"Ms. Briggs-"

"No comment," she snapped, pushing past a guy hefting a camera and ducking under another with a notepad. "No comment!"

By the time she actually reached the emergency room doors, she was sweating, brunette hair sticking to the back of her neck. Taking a moment to breathe an impatient sigh, she motioned with a quirk of her finger to the detective standing guard.

"I want lists," she snapped. "Who was in there, who was out, and who the HELL told that guard he could leave!"

"Yes, Ms. Briggs!"

He turned away immediately, barking orders into a radio.

"Hey!" He paused, almost absurdly thin in his dark blue suit and longer than usual black hair. Mary gave him a searching glance, moving over his badge.

Oh, hell – she didn't give a fuck anymore if she didn't recognize him.

"Get everyone out of that room. I want that room quarantined until I inspect it personally. No one leaves, and no one gets in that room but me."

He hesitated, but nodded, holding the black radio to his mouth and rasping away.

Pulling uncomfortably at her shirt, Mary stood in the midst of the chaos caused by an attack on a super-celebrity.

"Good Lord," she whispered, eyes closing as her heart beat an erratic thump. "Why can't that bastard be a good little boy and just kill someone."

The detective walked with a quick, brisk gait.

His eyes were dark, almost black, and his features were soft, almost too feminine.

At this point, he didn't seem to care that his hips swaggered as his walked, or the fact that as he rounded the corner, his jerked his head to the right, as if flipping hair that wasn't there.

The private wing that held Jason Gibbons was now flooded with security, personnel.

A bored uniform shot him a glance, and immediately stepped aside, letting him through.

Another detective, an older lady with defined features and a wise face, fell into step behind him.

"Briggs finally decided to grace us with her presence?"

"Apparently," clipped the detective. "Is that room cleaned?"

"Everyone's outta there but Gibbons, his bodyguard and a dog."

"A dog? There's a dog in there?" he asked, coming to a stop to look back.

The detective, even with tired shadows under her eyes and hair pulled back in a hasty ponytail, had a trace of her younger self upon her face in the form of a mischievous smile.

"Hey, I don't know how that got in there. To be honest, I was too busy looking at the bodyguard."

"Excuse me?"

"Cute guy with the brownest eyes I've ever seen. Not your regular bodyguard. Lean. Gotta say – Gibbons is a cutie, but that guy sure gives him a run for his money in the looks department."

The detective was unamused. "Well, it's refreshing to know that while there's been an attempted murder in the room just half an hour ago, instead of looking for the possible suspect who is more than likely within five miles, you're checking out how cute the bodyguard is."

Detective Brown's smile fell. "Hey... lighten up."

He shuddered once, stepping away from her with a curt nod. "I don't lighten up."

Stepping away, he didn't stop, even as he heard the detective speak in a low voice behind him, "Who is that guy?"

--

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Natalie hesitated, palm smoothing around a hot plank that rose out of the ocean, pinning the planks of the dock in place. Dylan, ten feet ahead, curled a hand around the rope that led down to the dock that she had stopped coming down years ago.

"He's a go-to guy, Natalie," Dylan said, blinking in the sun, before glancing back toward the little red tug-boat. "They'll be looking for the speedboat."

Natalie understood Dylan's logic. But Chad, or The Chad, as he liked to refer to himself, was hardly someone she thought Dylan wanted to see again. Despite the fact that they had what was barely termed as a 'relationship', Chad was by and large a big weirdo, and as sweet he seemed to be, he had a habit of causing Dylan more trouble with his clingy ways than actual help.

Then again, considering Dylan's luck with her love life in the past few hours, this by and large could have been considered an improvement.

"All right," she said, finally, hand on her hips as her head dipped in approval.

Dylan's frown was evident, but her sunglasses were stripped on and immediately it shifted upside down, a pale copy of the true radiance of Dylan's sincere grin.

The music floating out of the boat was an old rendition of 'Iko, Iko', an odd choice to be coming out a single man's boat, to be sure.

But nothing about Chad was really normal.

"Hey!" she called, tapping on the big bell that was hung just outside the loading dock of the little tugboat. "Can The Chad come out and play?"

Natalie sighed, shifting the vest under her shirt, and glancing at her watch.

Dylan waited only a minute, meeting gazes with Nat before banging the bell.

"Chad!"

The music shot off with a click. Natalie bit her lip, pushing off from the plank and searching the boat as a timid, "Starfish?" came from a window.

Natalie swallowed tightly as Dylan slipped a hand to her waistband, dipping under her leather jacket to secure what was hidden underneath before she jerked the jacket back over the gun, looking cool and distant and beautiful as she waited for her ever faithful lap dog to scurry out of the boat.

"Starfish?!"

Dylan grinned. "Hey, Chad. I need a favor."

The lanky man stood uncertainly, hands closing over the ledge of his boat.

When Dylan nodded, Natalie came forward, shifting both backpacks over her shoulder and clipping her way down the door. "Hey, Chad," she said politely, mouth spreading into an inviting grin and waving a manicured palm.

Watching his adoring eyes on a coolly ambivalent Dylan, Natalie felt suddenly as if she was in the middle of a vicious carousal.

She was getting dizzy, and she wanted off.

"Alex," she whispered. "Where are you?"

--

Jason had been moved to an adjoining bed, but the room was still stained with blood, chairs overturned and a broken window bringing a cool breeze into the room.

The Hollywood actor was carefully still, palm gently rubbing up and down Spike's head, as the little dog settled into his lap, muzzle resting on his thigh.

Pete, an ice-pack held carefully to his head, glanced up as a slim detective snapped open the door, stepping in to close it behind him.

Rising to his feet, Pete gave a narrowed glance. "Hey, can you explain just what the heck is going on..." Words seemed to fail him when the detective walked right past him, and embraced Jason in a desperate hug. "... here?"

Spike gave a yip of anger, plastered between the detective and Jason.

"Jason!"

Jason looked understandably freaked when he found his cheek pressed against the wrapped breasts of the male detective. "Uh..."

He blinked. Breasts?

"Alex?!"

He struggled, craning his head and shoving at the embrace to get a better look at the male. "Alex?"

Pete's mouth fell open. "Alex?"

Alex Munday straightened, pulling deftly at her mustache the minute she let Jason finally slide back down on the sheets.

"Hey," she said breathlessly, flashing a tight grin as she unclipped the voice synthesizer from her mouth, pulling at her wig, and finally letting her hair fall free.

Jason blinked, staring up at her for a full second before he slumped back down onto the bed in relief. "Oh, thank God," he said, reaching for her hand and squeezing. "I mean, I know the cops care and all that, but it was just a little scary-"

"Are you guys okay?" she asked, shoving off the blazer and throwing her briefcase on the available chair.

"We're fine," Pete said, motioning at his head with the icepack. "Got clipped by a chair, but nothing serious?"

Alex swallowed down the lump in her throat in an unconscious effort to bring moisture back into her mouth. Turning, she took in a heavy breath, glancing over the room as she continued to undress.

Pete coughed quickly and turned away immediately.

"Relax, Pete," Jason's tone was tired, but he was avidly watching with interest. "She's got something underneath."

She did indeed, a black catsuit and fitted boots that completed her ensemble.

"God, you look good," he finished with a grin.

There was no time to thank him for the compliment. Stepping out of her long slacks, Alex rubbed a hand into her hair, stepping over broken glance as she surveyed the room.

The bed was largely untouched, but there two splotches of blood over it, and another trail of it scattered over to the window.

She moved forward. "He stood over here?" she asked, leaning over the windowsill.

"Yeah," Pete said, hands on his hips. "Then he chucked the chair and jumped out."

There was about fifty feet of space between the window and the ground below. He would have gone straight up. Alex pursed her lips, craning her neck to view the roof- some twenty feet away.

He had come from inside the building.

"Of all the stupid-" Biting off her comment, Alex turned around. "Where did he get you?"

Jason blinked. "Get me?"

"With his sword, Jason," she said quickly. "You're okay?"

"Oh..." Jason looked slightly sheepish as he rubbed at his stomach, curling the dog into his lap as he nodded thoughtfully. "Well.. um... see it's kinda weird... what happened."

Pete gave a large sigh, hands reaching once more for the watery blue icepack.

Alex blinked.

"What happened?"

"Well... um...see I was in here with Spike, and Pete had gone to get a nurse..."

"And?" Alex clipped.

"Suddenly I look up and there's a guy with a gun pointed right at me!"

"A gun?" The fact flabbergasted Alex. "A gun?"

"Yeah," Jason nodded eagerly, animated in his tale as he mimicked the shooter, pointing with his index, thumb curled into his palm. "Then of course Spike starts barking, and I um... didn't see anything else."

"Why didn't you see anything else?" Jason colored pink, and suddenly seemed to find the golden brown hairs on the top of Spike's head endlessly fascinating. "Jason!"

Even Pete, scruffy with dirt, and looking slightly shaken, managed an amused, reluctant smile. "Because that's about the time he ducked under the covers."

"He was scary!" Jason insisted. "And I kinda hit my head on the bedpost when I did that and..."

"-Passed out," Pete finished.

Alex quirked an eyebrow. "You beat down a guy with a machine gun with nothing but a stick of gum in "Memories of Men" and you passed out?"

"Well, technically that wasn't me," Jason corrected. "That was my stunt double. And besides! That was scary." Alex stared at him in disbelief. "I have an ouchie," he said defensively, pointing to the back of his head.

Alex closed her eyes, fighting between the obvious relief that her boyfriend had come out of a second assassination attempt with nothing more than a bump on the head that was less severe than the time he tripped down her stairs, and the urge to strangle him for not at least keeping his eyes open to tell her what happened.

"Pete?" she tried, turning to Natalie's boyfriend. "What did you see?"

"Well... I was at the vending machine," he began. "Heard two shots, and the dog barking-"

Alex smiled, nodding at Natalie's little terror, who now sat contritely in her boyfriends lap. "Good boy."

"Yeah, he's a good dog, allright," Jason said affectionately. "Hey, Alex, if we're back together– can we get a dog?"

"Honey, it's not the time," she said patiently. "Pete?"

"Right. So I go running back, and find this creepy guy in a suit over there," Pete finished, indicating toward the window. "Holding a bloody sword."

Alex frowned. "But Jason wasn't bleeding. And there's blood on the sheets, and all over the floor."

"Maybe it was his?" Jason tried.

Alex shook her head, thoughtful in her confusion. Her heels cracked on the glass, making odd crunching noises as she examined the evidence left behind. "If it's the guy I think it is, he would never impale himself with his own sword..."

Alex paused, swerving in the small room, the encounter found in the prints on the floor. There were bloody footprints on the floor... the window with the broken glass... blood by the door...

By the door-

"You said he threw a chair, but it didn't hit you?"

"Clipped me on the head," Pete confirmed, rubbing at the tip of his noggin. "But I ducked before he really got me."

It didn't make sense. None of this made sense. Why would Anthony, knowing he had been spotted, not try to kill-

Why wasn't Jason dead? Why wasn't Pete dead?

Why were there bullet shots when he held a bloody sword?

Her eyes shifted to the holes in the wall next to the bed. The aim was truly off.

Coming closer, she fingered the holes. The angle of entry indicated that the shooter had been directed off course-

By maybe a stab wound?

Alex's entire body seemed to suddenly hum with adrenaline, possibilities coming forth that seemed unheard of, unmentionable-

It couldn't be...

"Oh, God," she whispered. Jerking back, her gaze was now on the floor.

The blood splattered, was cryptic and gory, but none of it reached Jason's chest. There was a splash of it on the sheets over where his legs would be, down on the floor there was more-

Footprints. Doc Martins.

And Harley Davidsons.

She sucked in her breath, eyes suddenly on the entrance of the room.

"Pete," she began in a strained whisper. The two men were watching her with fascinated expressions, keeping almost reverently silent as she followed the blood, now mussed by Pete's footprints, Nikes, by the looks of them. "When you came into the room, did you look behind you?"

"Behind me?" Pete repeated.

"Yes, behind you," Alex said, moving across the room in five easy steps. "Like in this corner?" To the left of the doorway, there was about five feet of space between the beams of the door and the wall.

Pete looked bewildered. "No," he said finally. "I just kinda...shot in."

The chair that The Thin Man had flung so sloppily at Pete still lay in a crumpled heap, inches from where Alex stood.

Leaning down, she carefully examined the area.

There, on the floor, were two prints, smudges of red against the gray of the tile.

On the chair, right on the hard angle of the arms of the chair, was another dark crusted blotch.

The Thin Man hadn't been aiming at Pete.

She stood, hands shaking and head swirling, as once again she took in the scene, the footprints, the bullets, the chair, the window-

"Oh, God," she whispered. "There were two of them."

--

Maybe she was just prolonging the inevitable.

Eventually there would be an investigation, and sooner or later, someone would call into question that APB that had been called for that mental patient on four that completely went berserk for no particular reason right about the time that Jason Gibbons had been attacked.

Mary was good, and her reputation was protected by some very large bribes that were placed in certain pockets on behalf of the Irish mob, but it was only a matter or time before her luck would run out.

At the moment, with three Townsend Sweethearts hating her on one side and a homicidal mob boss on the other, Mary figured it would be sooner rather than later.

Always a survivor, she knew she'd probably scrap out of it somehow. She always did. It was what she told herself.

For some reason, today, it refused to keep her hands from trembling.

The back of the hospital was a dingy alley that was surprisingly quiet, thanks the rattles and chatter of the ten thousand reporters stationed out front.

Her boots echoed like horses hooves, and in the dusk, she finally found herself able to breathe.

Tipping a cigarette into her hand, she stuffed the package back in her blazer, digging further into her pocket until her fingers closed around a smooth metallic box.

With a grim smile, she lifted it out, examining the lighter in the fading light of the setting sun.

It was an interesting design, and Mary was finding herself curiously attached to it.

Snapping it, she took a moment to study the flame, before bringing the cigarette to her lips, burning the tip to ignite the flame.

Taking a long drag, she finally let herself relax, back pressed against the wall, bringing down her lighter, and closing her eyes.

"Forget Seamus," she whispered. "These things will kill me and I'll die happy."

The peaceful respite, well deserved, in her opinion, was cut short when a shrill screamed rang in her ear.

Eyes jolting open, Mary never had even a second to reach for her gun before the blade tipped against her skin, a predatory face at the other side of it.

"Oh," she managed. "Hey Anthony. How's it going?"

As always, the killer seemed immaculately dressed, with exception to his hair. The strands were now falling in bangs, framing his face, as if the wild man was coming slowly apart at the seams.

That was not something she wanted to see.

Anthony was crazy enough. Crazy Anthony was... normal – wild Anthony?

That was just not a good thing.

He gave a visible shudder that went through his entire body, slipping into a defensive stand that indicated he was quite close to lunging forward, driving that sword through her neck and up into her brain.

"I knew cigarettes were going to kill me," she whispered. Louder, she snapped, "Don't even try it. You're really starting to piss me off, Anthony."

He hissed at her, mouth curving into a dangerous frown, as those weird eyebrows of his arched higher into his forehead. She remained perfectly still, the tip of the blade teasingly sharp against her skin.

"You screwed up," she said quickly, keeping her voice firm, condescending, like an irate mother. "You screwed up big time, and Seamus is going to kill you – I can help you, Anthony. You know that. He won't kill you if I put in a good word – maybe a little torture, but you might be able to crawl away from it –"

Lightening fast, his palm shot forward, slamming his palm against her mouth, driving her head against the wall for a blinding shock of pain.

Okay, he wanted her to shut up. She could do that.

Glaring was about the best she could do under the circumstances, and she did it well, hands spread against the wall, so that her knuckles scraped against the rough brick. Anthony kept his gaze on her, visibly seething.

Suddenly, his eyes roved downwards.

His palm eased off her mouth, allowing her to bring her head back away from the wall. The blade shifted threateningly.

"Hey! Not moving! Just... you know – trying to keep from passing out thanks to my slight concussion! Good thing we're near a hospital, right?"

It really worked better when her witty retorts were met with something other than a murderous glare.

She had enough of that from Seamus.

But Anthony had enough of her talking. He now dug into her fists.

The lighter, once in his possession, was carefully, reverently pressed against his cheek, rubbed over his lips with an orgasmic sigh.

Mary blinked.

"See? This is why we could never date."

Her lighter was slipped into his pocket and suddenly, she was free, as the sword was lowered and the Thin Man stepped back.

Rubbing at her throat, she inched for her gun, palm moving slowly into her jacket.

He glared at her, staring at her, then the gun, as if daring her to follow through.

She considered.

With a smile, she lifted her hand out of her blazer. "I think I'll let Seamus deal with you. I think he's got a lot more planned than just a simple bullet in your ass."

Anthony craned his neck, as if ridding himself of some unknown kink, before he plucked the cigarette from her fingers and raised it to his lips.

"Okay, that's just rude."

Understandably disgruntled, Mary found herself watching helplessly as Anthony walked swiftly away from the alley.

"Hey, Thin-y," she called after him. Anthony kept going. She took a couple steps, raising her voice a couple octaves, "I bet it's nothing compared to what he's got planned for your girlfriend."

He stopped for a full second, back straight, and sword shaking, before he disappeared down the alley in a cloud of smoke.

Mary grinned. Rubbing ruefully at her throat, she dug into her pocket for another cigarette. Patting her pockets, Mary suddenly groaned.

Raising her radio to her mouth, she spat, "Brown, get somebody down here with a match or something, will you?"

--

The cool sea breeze slapped against Dylan's face like a wet rag.

She felt dirty and despite the fact that on a normal day, she loved a day at sea, the taste of the salt was vile on her tongue.

Green eyes, dark with emotion, were focused intently on the ship only a few hundred yards away, docked in a heavily guarded port that made Chad's little alcove seem like the Lego version by comparison.

"Dylan?" Natalie's voice rattled in her ear, and also in the air, as her blonde best friend came forward, adjusting the molar mike in her tooth as she stepped up to her. "Find anything?"

Lips pulling down in a heavy frown, Dylan shook her head slowly, wiping at the damp red locks that stuck to her face. "No activity other than the usual. All's quiet on the Western front."

Natalie's arm brushed hers, silent as the whir of the tugboat engine thumped below them. "Nothing on my side either," she said honestly. "But I think I might have found a way in."

Dylan's glance was a curious one. "Yeah?"

"Give me a couple minutes," Natalie answered, voice somber and darker than usual. "But I think it may-"

"Starfish?" Both women were distracted when the captain of the little tug-boat that could emerged from below deck, carrying a tray of two Seabreezes. "I brought you a drink."

On what had to be the worst day of her life, Dylan had make a promise to remain closed to herself. No sympathy, no empathy, nothing but the pure thirst for revenge. The cold butt of the gun as it rested on the small of her back was her nagging reminder. She figured there had to be a part of that in her, the unfeeling bastard that took what she wanted and never looked back, since her regular habit of falling for them had to come from somewhere.

But Chad was harmless, and insecure. His wide brown eyes had drawn her in once, with his beautiful adoration, and her insatiable thirst for 'normal'. Dylan had her fantasies – she envied Alex and Natalie for their infallible abilities to find wonderful, genuine men who adored them for who they were. Jason and Pete, despite movie star status and bartending after-hours, were good souls with a tinge of normal.

Dylan had once wanted normal so badly she had clung to a simple tug-boat captain who had tried unfailingly to provide that for her.

She realized as the relationship deteriorated, that normal wasn't ever going to be for Dylan Sanders. Normal wasn't in her blood, and despite the bitter twinge in her heart that still wanted it, there was a sad resignation that told her she'd be fucking and hating and loving the same type of men for the rest of her life.

It wasn't fair. She didn't want it.

But her heart broke and even with sweet Chad and his seabreezes, she stung inside as a pair of blue eyes seared her soul.

Natalie squeezed her shoulder and stepped away from her, moving to the head of the tugboat.

"Thank you," she said, taking a glass that he procured for her. "For the tugboat."

He gave her a small, shy smile. "A sailor is a slave to the oceans, and all its storms."

"Sure," she answered, staring hard down into the blue of the seabreeze. "It's pretty easy to drown."

Chad leaned in next to her, breathing in the salty air with a sigh, eyes on the blue-green darkness of the waves lapping against the boat.

"Drowning... yes." He seemed to struggle with his words, and finally, he managed a smile. "But a funny thing about starfish – they have this way of sticking to the rocks. You try to move them, and you can't. Waves beat at them, and they survive. Strong and beautiful, starfish are."

It was his roundabout way of trying to comfort her, awkwardly phrased, and simply put, but it gave a warm chill in Dylan's heart. For a second, she wished desperately she could have loved Chad, for all his irregular charm.

Gently, she shifted and pressed her lips against his bearded cheek. "I'll envy the woman who finally gets you, sailor," she said, as she pulled back. His skin flushed pink, but his smile was shy, and his gaze, aware.

"Dylan!"

Natalie's call was loud and intrusive, forcing Dylan to wince as she held a finger to her ear. "Nat?"

The blonde Angel was waving frantically, motioning Dylan to the stern of the tugboat.

With an apologetic glance to Chad, Dylan pushed away from the rail, making her way to Natalie, who held a phone to her free ear.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Natalie handed her a cellphone, one that Dylan noted as a spare they kept. With a questioning glance, she obeyed, clipping in the small microphone and inserting the small speaker into her ear.

"Hello?"

"It's Alex," came the tinny voice. "Guys, we have a serious problem."

As if things weren't going to get any worse.

Dylan's eyes closed in resignation, her heart already a lead lump as she pressed a palm to her ribs with an inward hiss. "What?"

"The Thin Man isn't the Celebrity Sniper."

_end chapter_


	15. Chapter Fifteen: Sex, Lies & Videotape

**Chapter Fifteen: Sex, Lies and Videotape**

Mary hated the Irish.

She hated their stinking green paddys, hated the way they talked, hated their stupid little clan, and hated the fact that she was forced to listen to the orders of a mentally unstable ex-con with shockingly good looks ruined by a really bad haircut.

"I'm stuck here, Seamus," she clipped into her cell phone. Her cigarette break had becoming something of an impromptu meeting, as her ridiculously dangerously stupid devil of a boss shouted and cursed at her and generally accused her of foiling a plan that was too ridiculous to begin with. "Your fullproof boy screwed up, your little protégé fucked it up, and he also had the distinction of fucking her, which means she's probably got it all figured out by now and is headed your way. I had nothing to do with this."

"You better pray ya've got a better excuse than that when I see ya again, Mary," he spit into her ear. "Find them and bring him to me," he snapped, slamming the phone down so hard she jerked it from her ear to avoid the clash of the receiver against the dingy metal she knew existed in his office.

Great. So now she was a delivery girl, too.

This was seriously getting out of control.

Mary had been on a lot of shit-lists before, but this time, the load of bull was piling up so high, she wondered if she'd ever get the stink off of her.

Her world was a blistering blur of murders, assassins, death incarnates and Angels - ruled by a devil with a thick brogue accent who felt nothing but hate, had no loyalty but his own emotions.

Not that Mary could really fault him for that.

She wasn't exactly the picture of stalwart and true.

But this was seriously going to get her into problems.

Mary was in over her head, and the minute she let officers into that room - with that actor - her career was as good as gone.

It was stupid, and she should have said no when Seamus proposed it, cut him off when he finally let her in on his killer. Who would have known?

Who would have known that the celebrity sniper would have been HIM?

Such a stupid, insignificant little-

Mary dropped the cigarette on the ground, smooshing the flame out with the tip of her shoe, before she took a breath, walked into the hospital, and wondered how the hell she could make all of it - all the angels and devils and snipers and actors just go away.

--

For one minute, her whole world teetered on the edge of a cliff.

Alex's words didn't make sense at first, with everything swinging this way and that. Dylan's grip on the rail of the Tugboat was so tight, the sting and burn of the ropes barely registered with her.

All Dylan saw was Natalie's eyes, bluer than the dirty sea, wide and round, face blank with shock as she focused completely on her.

Alex's pronouncement burned into her. With a drop of her stomach, her world tipped and slid over, dragging her down with it.

"Dylan!"

The anxious tone, so loud from the speaker it snapped against her eardrum painfully, was harried, as if Alex had been repeating her name for some time now. Natalie, eyebrow arched, squeezed her shoulder.

Trying to think at the moment was like navigating through heavy fog. Her mouth was sewn shut, but her mind was moving, struggling to free itself from the sluggishness that came with the implications of Alex's statement.

"What?"

"You said Anthony told you who the killer was - what did he say?"

She was so exhausted. Tingles of pain shot up her feet, her stomach had filled immediately with molten lead, her shoulders weighted down by some sort of heaviness that made it almost impossible to keep upright.

Her fingers dug into the ropes, sliding against them harshly as she pressed against the side.

"Uh..." Tone raspy and breathless, Dylan tried again, tongue darting out to lick her lips, pushing out the word much like Anthony himself as he said it, harsh and raw. "Death. He said 'death'."

Natalie, a first hand witness to what Alex's news was doing to her red-headed wreck of a friend, slipped a hand about her waist in a gentle caress. Pulling her into her side, her voice was harder than usual as she snapped, "Alex, you better explain this right now-"

"I'm going to! Just hold on!"

Alex Munday dug through her briefcase, lapping water, a guy far off yodeling and the sound of waves crashing her only indication that her friends were still on the other line. Her briefcase lay open, and tapes, scattered about Jason's bed, were messily and desperately sorted.

Pete, Jason, and an uncharacteristically behaved Spike all remained quiet, listening as Alex explained hurriedly. "The Thin Man wasn't here to kill Jason," she began. "He was here to protect him."

Dylan shook her head, bewildered and beseeching as she glanced helplessly at Natalie.

Natalie's lips pursed. "Alex-"

"About two minutes before the attack there was a call for all security and personal to go to room 410 - some security breach in the lunatics ward. The staff was on a skeleton crew as it was, and that left it open. The Sniper came in through Jason's door with the gun." Fumbling, Alex dropped a tape, scanning the label of a second before shoving it into the VCR. "He had the Luger and he was about to shoot when the Thin Man came in from the window, and stabbed him."

"Stabbed him-"

"There's blood all over the place," Alex interrupted, pushing the fast forward, irises dilating as the images began to move jerkily forward. "Thank God we didn't go digital."

The picture Alex was painting was erratic, full of holes and it made no sense. Dylan's eyes closed in involuntary frustration.

"I don't understand how..."

"I'm getting there," Alex piped up, lost in the images on screen before she grimaced with a heartfelt pound of her chest, pushing at the eject button so forcefully she nearly sprained her index finger.

"Pete said he heard two shots and then ran into the room, where he saw the Thin Man holding a bloody sword and nothing else. Then he looks at Pete, flings a chair, misses him, and crashes through the window." Alex took in a deeper breath. "The two shots hit into the wall. The Thin Man stabbed our sniper, who in turn bled his way to the corner of the room, when Pete ran in-"

Natalie's eyes closed, Alex's words ruminating through her as the scene with the killer, face darkened in obscurity, began to take place before her, marked in slow motion, haunting in its rhythm.

"- The Thin Man saw the guy was hurt, but not out. He flung the chair at the sniper, over Pete, and hit him. He scooted out the door and The Thin Man left through the window."

"Why would he save them?" Dylan snapped. Her voice had returned to her, but emotion colored it harsh and defensive, darkened eyes almost flashing, as she glared at Natalie, as if, by extension, she could reach Alex's chocolate gaze.

"Good question, Dylan," the girl answered easily, pressing play on a second tape and reaching for the third. "Why don't you tell me?"

The direct question stung her somehow, and Dylan's eyes closed, jerking away from Natalie, a hardened lump in her throat sticking her words in her esophagus.

"Wait... if The Sniper was using the Thin Man's luger, why wouldn't he use it for the funeral-"

"Because the Sniper didn't shoot Jason in the funeral," Alex answered Natalie crisply. "If he did Jason would be dead."

She was so engrossed in the sequences of events unfolding on the screen, she missed Jason's audible whimper.

"Then who shot-"

"It was him..." Dylan breathed. Her eyes widened, and she whirled, body jerking toward Natalie, arranging thoughts, and slamming them into their place, like the last number of a combination lock. "That's why Jason was different! That's why he didn't die! Because Anthony shot him!"

"Why would Anthony-" Alex began, distracted from the television to listen intently.

"He was protecting him," Natalie whispered, catching on with an involuntary smile coming to her face. "He knew who the Sniper was going for so he shot Jason-"

"-to get him out of the way-," Alex jumped in, eyes widening as her hand fell into her lap.

"-before the Sniper could," Dylan finished, shaking her head in amazement. Her heart was pounding furiously in her chest, moving so erratically, "He saved his life."

"Why does the Creepy Thin Guy always know more than we do?" Alex snapped, rubbing at her head. It didn't seem fair somehow. "Is there like a magical creepy guy psychic hotline that we don't know about?"

Pete and Jason, now completely lost, as they were only hearing snatches of Alex's conversation, shot each other confused glances. "Who's the Creepy Thin Guy?" Jason asked.

"Guy who saved your life by trying to kill you," Pete answered methodically.

Jason blinked. "Oh."

"Then if our Sniper isn't the Creep-" Upon a glance to Dylan, Natalie suddenly paused, mouth framing another word as she tangled fingers in her friend's grip. "-Anthony," she corrected. "Then who is it?"

"My votes on the butler," Dylan managed, exhaustion littering her face, more than likely from the emotional roller coaster that was riding her even now.

"No..." Alex held her breath, fingers tapping at the fast forward button as the murder played out before her eyes. "Keep going..."

Natalie closed her eyes, fingers closing around Dylan's shoulder as she began a brainstorm. "Someone with connections to Mary-"

"-And Seamus," Dylan added, nodding quickly. "Someone who could fade into a crowd-"

"-Who knew just enough about medicine to kill a person without a direct shot to the head-" Alex put in, eyes narrowing in on an image. She pressed pause.

"Someone very good with a scalpel-"

"Someone who's Death," Dylan finished. The word hung in the air, stagnant in it's meaning, and suddenly, making everything clearer than ever before. Eyes growing wide, Dylan slapped at Natalie's forearm, wrapping digits around the limb as the answer suddenly came into her head. "Oh my God... it was right there-"

"Jason," Alex snapped, heart jumping into her throat uncomfortably as she whirled and pointed at the screen. "That the guy you saw?"

Jason swallowed, rubbing at the back of his head at the memory and scooting forward, squinting to get a better look. "Yeah," he said finally. "That's him. That's the guy-"

"Alex, what are you doing?" Natalie asked, vibrating the speaker in her ear.

"Making sure," Alex said, staring hard at the figure almost hidden among the stars, only ten feet away from where the Thin Man stood at the premiere, "that the Thin Man wasn't lying for once..."

"Wouldn't be the first time I had sex with a liar," Dylan muttered. The words, however bitter, were an almost welcome attempt at humor from the wounded Angel, and it made Natalie almost smile. At least Dylan was back to making sarcastic bad jokes. Without a word, she reached forward, drawing her friend in with a kiss on the forehead, calmly soothing even as her thoughts threatened to drown her.

Alex, palms resting on her thighs, glanced apprehensively at the closed door, then at her watch.

"The sniper is exactly who the Thin Man said it was," she said slowly. "Death."

"Death," Dylan repeated, mouth dropping as she sounded out the word.

Natalie gasped, an almost laugh at the revelation that just seemed so obvious now. "The coroner."

--

He was an expert in death.

He did not know how to save a life. Not even his own.

Marlin toppled forward, upsetting a box of cardboard that could have been a drifter's makeshift home, breaking the cardboard as it blocked his fall.

He breathed in, sharp and erratic in his gasps. The blood was everything. Dripping down from his forehead, flowing into a stinging mess into his eyes. It seeped, warm against his increasingly cold abdomen, and stick against his palm.

He remembered enough to press against the open wound, little Merlin, staggering through the dark, dingy alley - like Harrison Ford in the fugitive.

And even now, he laughed, short choking sounds that hurt each time he tried to speak.

They were extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary.

They had changed things, and hurt him, and not one of them had had to lift a finger to do it.

It was amazing, extraord-

He moved sluggishly, foot catching against a trashcan, slamming into the dank pavement, chin crashing against the cement.

The gun... he had lost the gun...

His present... his reason...

He had lost his gun...

A small chirp coincided with a vibration in his pants.

Marlin, face plastered painfully around a pebble on the concrete, had a massive headache, but bloody fingers reached into the dark pans, closing around the cellphone that continued to vibrate and beat.

Curling to his side, he placed the phone on his ear with effort.

"Hello."

"Where the hell are you?"

His eyes closed as he hitched in a heavy sigh, feeling the puncture give with a stab of pain.

"Wilshire and... fifth?"

"Did he kill you?"

His eyes snapped open. "Yes," he began in a wheeze. "He killed me. You're talking to my ghost. And I'm going to haunt you."

Mary's silence indicated she was not amused.

"You fucked up, idiot. I haven't been up there because I'm hoping that my some damned miracle all that blood is going to up and evaporate on my ass- that better not be yours."

"It's not."

"Oh? Then why is Anthony curiously intact?"

Marlin closed his eyes, the throbbing break in his skin above his forehead pounding inside his skull, threatening to burst through the bone.

He was openly rasping now, hiccupping as he choked through blood bubbles to get his words out.

"You were never extraordinary - you wouldn't understand. You're like me. Ordinary. She made him do it-"

"Yeah, no shit Sherlock! She made them do it all - her and her little friends are the reason why I'm in this god-damned mess and I'm tired of it. If I go in there and find that blood I'm going to fry your ass, Marlin-"

"I pity you," he whispered. "You'll never know what it's like to be extraordinary. You'll never be more than what you are."

She fell curiously silent, breath hitching in her tone before she snapped, "Fuck off, Marlin-"

"Wait," he rasped, coughing as he pushed himself up to sit upright. Falling back against the brick wall, he closed his eyes, took a moment to stave the pain, and began heavily, "Tell me where they are... and they'll be ordinary just like you."

She laughed, a hollow dry laugh. "They'll be dead, Marlin."

"They'll be ordinary, just like me."

She quieted.

He closed his eyes, curling the phone to him when the line clicked, and his ordinary Mary, left him alone.

After wasting a precious minute breathing, he staggered to his feet, and continued his way down the alley.

--

"Oh my God," Natalie whispered, rubbing her fingers through her hair, tangling locks in exasperation. Walking in a circle around the little stern of the tugboat, she glanced helplessly at Dylan. "How did we not see it? I was in his office. The movie posters - Mary showing up JUST as I was about to go through the reports-"

"He's got the connection," Alex replied, nodding as if they could see her. "But what's the motive?"

Dylan, still muddled in shock, and throbbing for a pain in her ribs that just wouldn't go away, snapped her jaw tight. Anthony's furious face as she held the knife to his throat seemed to fill her senses, the rapid heartbeat underneath her fingertips she didn't remember feeling until now battering her ears. "Seamus isn't enough?" she snorted.

"No," Natalie agreed, eyes hooded as she thought grimly. "No... this guy wasn't killing for a job - the money would be a perk-"

"It was personal," Alex reminded them.

Personal...

Dylan froze, suddenly swept backwards into a flashback where she was a reporter with whorish librarian glasses, having an amiable conversation with a man in black boots who stroked a body that used to be Annabeth Torres.

_"Weird," he said, "How dead people seem so... ordinary-"_

"He's ordinary." Dylan's tone was so flat, so dead that Natalie's gave her a questioning gaze. "I talked to him before, back when I got the casing of the bullet from Annabeth's body. He said that she was extraordinary in real life, and that in death, she was ordinary." With a click of her tongue, she shook her head. "The way he said it... like he hated her."

"Why didn't we see it before?" Alex whispered, fingers still on the tape. Pate and Jason were so still behind her they might as well have been statues.

Dylan was quiet beside Natalie, more than likely lost in the implications of the truth, the questions brought on by the revelation of what was true. That Anthony hadn't lied. That Anthony had been protecting Jason.

That she nearly killed and hated a man who she had given up everything to fight for.

But Natalie knew the answer, as she gripped at the ropes of the railing with both hands, leaning into them so they pressed against the small of her back.

"Because we didn't want to," she began quietly. "Everything that's happened since the moment that Annabeth was shot was skewed to play off our instincts. Our motivations."

Dylan jerked her head to meet her glance, taking in the resigned sadness of Natalie's features. "Oh my God," she whispered. "The clues - Anthony's gun, and the saber... Jason - they did it all to mess with our heads. To break us up."

Sneaking a glance to her boyfriend, who at the moment was absorbed in petting the puppy, Alex had an uncharacteristic moment of emotion, as she blinked against tears, and answered quietly, "Well, it worked."

"God," Natalie said, voice now more even, somewhat disbelieving. "Don't you just love it when it's all about us?"

Dylan's mind was whirling, now a tick in her mind created a whirlwind and she was between the Thin Man's legs, impatiently holding onto a piece of paper with the words 'You are extraordinary' on it.

"And that's what he was trying to say," Dylan whispered. Slapping her hands against her thighs she came forward, speaking urgently to Natalie. "He did something back at the bungalow - he was trying to tell me that I was the victim - that I was extraordinary!"

"That he was coming after us," Alex confirmed. "You know, not that I'm trying to pass the blame here, but this would have been a lot easier on all of us if the evil guy would have just come right out and said that."

"Would he have believed him?" Natalie inserted quietly. "We didn't even believe Dylan."

The green in Dylan's eyes darkened somewhat as she met her glance. Natalie smiled sadly, and the lump in Dylan's throat bobbed.

Alex blanched, a slightly guilty expression roving onto her features as she shrugged helplessly. "Okay, fine. But what was with the Obiwan-Yoda signs? I mean, 'death'? Why couldn't he just, I don't know, say, 'it was the coroner. At least then would have had another lead."

Dylan, a bitter twinge in her breath, shrugged. "Because he's a spoiled brat psycho raised by a bunch of doting nuns who let him yank off their hair and taught him very badly how to tweeze."

Alex stayed quiet on the other line, but Dylan was sure that her expression mimicked Natalie's blank stare.

"What?" she said defensively. "Just because I have a thing for him doesn't mean I can't see his flaws."

Natalie, perhaps in an attempt to be somewhat supportive of this whirlwind excuse for a quasi romance, smiled a little sympathetically. "I know what you mean. Pete leaves the toilet seat up."

In the dead quiet of the hotel room, her loyal boyfriend managed to catch the sentence from the loudness of Alex's speaker. "Just that one time, Nat."

But the ridiculousness of the conversation was not something that Alex wanted to dwell on. "Uh... ANYWAY - I don't have much time, and we solved that mystery. How do we bring this guy down? Now that we all single-handedly managed to insult and piss off our only witness and lead-"

"Yeah, thanks for that," Dylan muttered, massaging at her temples lightly.

"Hey! He shot my boyfriend!"

"Boyfriend? Does that mean we're back together?!"

Pete gently nudged at Jason's shoulder, shaking his head at his excited friend. "You have to pick your moments, man. Not now." Jason pouted, and shuffled lower onto his bed.

"You tried to kill mine!"

"Because he tried to kill me!" Alex answered in defense.

"GUYS! Enough!" Natalie's chirpy voice was loud and authoritative, and it succeeded in shutting both women up. "We still have a problem. It's not like we're out of the clear yet."

"Yeah," Dylan answered. Not in the slightest. In the distance, the Merkin stood, a sweltering boat with a nightmare inside of her. For a second she felt ridiculously like Captain Nemo glaring at Moby Dick. God... Seamus... The butt of her gun rested temptingly on the small of her back. Her senses filled with his face, her ears echoed with his words.

_//Ya think ya hate me, Helen, but ya don't. You won't know the meaning of the word until you've been betrayed by everything you love and end up alone. Then you'll hate me.//_

She closed her eyes, shutting out the image of his face with a ragged drawn in breath, as suddenly she was brought to another moment, as a thinner, sharper featured man held her roughly by the hips, making intelligible, gutting groans as he pushed deeper into her, lips clamping just under her jaw to lave at the skin-

Her eyes jolted open.

_//Ya think ya hate me, Helen, but ya don't. You won't know the meaning of the word until you've been betrayed by everything you love and end up alone. Then you'll hate me.//_

No matter what - Anthony had been a part of this.

"I'm going to kill him," she whispered. At Natalie's questioning glance, she said, louder, "We have to find the Coronor, deal with Seamus-"

"And the fact that the Thin Man's still working for Seamus," Natalie said, lost as her hands flew up in confusion. "I mean, how else would he have known? How are we supposed to take that?"

"We don't," Dylan said easily. "He's still the bad guy." The shocked look that Natalie threw her shook her slightly, and she rubbed at her elbow, shrugging helplessly. "Tell me he isn't still working for him. Tell me he's not still a killer. Tell me he didn't try to kill you guys. Sure. He's not our sniper - but he's still a hell of a bastard."

"Yeah," Alex agreed, voice low and distant. "He's a bastard. But he's a bastard in love."

Dylan's face was strangely passive as Natalie's gaze bore into hers meaningfully. As the red-head glanced away, Natalie felt strangely choked. "And that makes all the difference."

--

Alex would have given anything to have been on that boat. Stranded in a hospital room, knees on the floor, surrounded by blood and tapes, she understood the reason why they had gone through this, had been torn apart, played perfectly into Seamus' hands and still managed to come through it together.

What she had with Dylan and Natalie, the ache she felt even as she ached for Jason sitting only ten feet away, nothing could ever replace.

They were a team, always together, always the Angels, even without sweet Bosley, even without the stalwart support of Charlie.

A sting in her heart made her wonder if they were going to be fired after this.

"Stay with the boat," she said into the silence. "I'll meet you there."

She couldn't afford to waste anymore time.

"Hurry," Natalie said quickly.

"I'll be there."

The door swung open, breaking her words, and startling Alex, frozen in place as she closed her hands over her back.

Mary Briggs, hands on her hips, registered shock on her features for about two seconds.

Then the smile edged forward, the gun was unclipped, and she shook her head, laughing, though what she found funny about all this, Alex had no idea.

"God is good," Mary said, smile widening on her face as the gun swung easily to point to Alex's heart. "He sent me my own guardian Angel."

"Alex... what's going on?" Dylan's voice was flat, urgent.

Alex's face was passive, body carefully fluid as she moved straight up, hands ready at her side, taking care that Pete, Jason and Spike, all watching with frozen expressions, were out of the shot range.

"Nothing important," she said easily. "I'll call you back."

With a click, she hung up the phone.

**end chapter**


	16. Chapter Sixteen: Stiny! Get me a Danish!

Chapter Sixteen: STINY! Get me a danish!  
  
Alex was by nature a relatively short person.  
  
The quickness with which she cut off her conversation, coupled with her easy going, slightly irritated tone, would have been misleading to everyone but her two best friends.  
  
Dylan's eyes widened, palm reaching up to press worriedly against her earlobe, hazel eyes catching Natalie's blue in a shocked, silent glance.  
  
The words remained unspoken, but her meaning was clear, as her lips tightened, and her jaw jerked to the shore. Natalie's head bobbed in a short, terse nod. "Let's go."  
  
Clipping the phone to her waist, Natalie brushed by her. Dylan, form tense with anxious worry, jerked the speaker from her ear with her thumb and forefinger, dropping it on the small cushioned seat next to her, and folding fingers over the cold wet metal of the tugboat railing.  
  
Alex was an Angel who could more than take care of herself. Unlike Dylan, Alex never got herself in situations that were over her head, odds that she could never face. She faced everything with a cool, confident outlook - ensuring herself and everyone with her that she would always win. That was never a question.  
  
But it didn't mean that Dylan worried any less.  
  
Blowing out a long, loud breath in an effort to calm her beating heart, Dylan let unfocused eyes roam over the Merkin, cold and distant as it rested in the harbor.  
  
The lazy roam suddenly shifted into an alert freeze, as her breath caught. Without taking her eyes off the scene, her hand shot out, closing over Natalie's forearm, and pulling the blonde girl roughly to her.  
  
"Dylan! What-"  
  
"Look," she hissed.  
  
Pressed against her side, Dylan's palms locked in a painful grip around her skin, Natalie had no choice but to obey her friend and look. At first she saw nothing out of the ordinary, but as her gaze drifted down the loading dock of the Merkin, her body froze into ice. Eyes widening into bursts of blue, Natalie's jaw dropped in startled surprise.  
  
Like a morbid spectator at a car race, Natalie stood helpless as she watched.  
  
A thin man in a black suit had unceremoniously walked toward the men standing guard at the docks, and without preamble had shoved a sword into his gut, pulling back impassively and watching the man fall.  
  
That had gotten the other men's reaction, assuredly. At least five came after him, but the Thin Man, tiny but still visible, dodged them all easily, sword flashing as he barely seemed to move, blade cutting through another. When the last finally produced a gun, aimed directly at his chest, the Thin Man gracefully stopped his swings.  
  
Every guard around him froze, fists in the air, but Anthony merely wiped at the errant bangs that had fallen into his face, and gave a short, polite bow.  
  
"What the hell?" Dylan's strangled whispered voiced her own confusion.  
  
Anthony's features, at this distance, were nothing but a scowl - still, his neck craned, and Natalie could almost hear the bones cracking in his vertebrae.  
  
It was surreal to watch what happened next.  
  
The Thin Man made a swift pivot, turning up the dock and into the ship, acting as if he were a guest at a dinner, and not at all like an intruder who had just carved holes into two men.  
  
Seamus' gangsters, somewhat shaken and irritated, began to clean up, while the two with the guns, slowly walked up after him.  
  
"What the hell was that?" Dylan repeated, words shorting out with an angry hiss, jerking to meet her friend's gaze with a narrowed glance.  
  
"I have no idea," Natalie whispered.  
  
"Shit." Dylan's exclamation, dark and husky with anger, was nearly spit out. Letting go of Natalie, Dylan's fingers went into her hair, tangling locks between the digits, as if she was so used to Anthony tearing her hair out, she had to do it herself now that he wasn't there to do it for her. "He is such a freak!"  
  
Natalie's look was slightly incredulous. "You slept with him."  
  
Dylan blinked, taking in her friend's expression before shrugging with resignation. "Yeah, well, I slept with The Chad, too," she said, thumbing to her ex-boyfriend, who was now sashaying with his hips from side to side singing, 'come on and get in the boat, fishies'.  
  
Natalie pursed her lips. "Point taken."  
  
Taking a moment to let the image of The Chad's little StrongBad dance sink into her brain, thereby neatly labeling him in the 'Never sleeping with again - EVER' category, Dylan couldn't help but add, "I so totally regret showing him that site."  
  
It would have been funny had it not come at such a completely fucked up time.  
  
"There's something going on down there," Natalie said, distraction tinting her tone as she studied the ship.  
  
"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock." The snap was mean, and out of character. Dylan regretted it immediately. With an overdrawn sigh, she grimaced, shaking her head, curls bobbing on her shoulders as she shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry, Nat, I just..."  
  
"I know," Natalie interjected quietly.  
  
"I mean - with Alex and Anthony-"  
  
"No shit, Sherlock," she shot back.  
  
The use of the 's' word coming back at her from the Golden Maiden drew a startled smile from Dylan's lips. When Natalie gave her a small smirk back, she shook her head in amazement, chuckling as carefully as she could without causing her ribs to erupt into an explosion of pain.  
  
In the silence that followed, the somberness settled back in. Despite the fact that brunette was not with them, Alex's presence was felt more than ever.  
  
Red-head and Blonde stood side-by-side, eyeing the ship, thoughts floating in and out of minds as if they were wired telepathically, honed to thinking as a three-person team, now cut down to two.  
  
Finally, Dylan voiced the worry. "We leave now, we might lose Anthony," she said. It was almost admirable, how she kept the emotion out of her voice - completely even, like the assassin who had entered the ship wasn't the man whom she had spent the last night tangled in sleep with, kissing his throat, running fingers over his chest, breathing in his curiously clean scent-  
  
She swallowed down the well of emotion that suddenly rose like bile on her throat. There wasn't time for this.  
  
Natalie, eyes on the ship, crossed her arms, flicking her a quick glance before she admitted, "I know. Knowing what we know - Seamus could kill him."  
  
"Or the Thin Man could kill Seamus," Dylan added. "Not that that's a BAD THING, but..." Trailing off at Natalie's dirty look, she cocked an eyebrow, reveling in her bitter frothing for another second before she glanced away from the accusing blues.  
  
"We're not going after Alex, are we?" Natalie asked flatly, wincing at the words. Dylan didn't have the courage to look. Saying it made it true, and there was no way in hell Dylan would ever think she was bailing on a friend to save a guy.  
  
"She can take care of herself," she said finally, more to persuade herself than anyone. Finally, her eyes caught Natalie's, and with difficulty, she managed to get the words out of her stuck throat, "She can handle it."  
  
Natalie wasn't as easy to persuade. Gripping the rails with a grip so hard, knuckles turned white, she managed a grim smile and a shake of her head.  
  
"We find out what's going on in there, then we pull out, and we grab Alex."  
  
It seemed wrong. Natalie and Alex had dropped everything, even risked a ride in Anthony with Frank Sinatra blaring on the 405 to save her from Mary the bitch.  
  
What made this different?  
  
Her eyes closed, her hands wrapped around her body, and Dylan stood, completely frozen.  
  
"Dylan?"  
  
She smiled morosely. "I could stand here," she said, eyes shut, "Not moving for the rest of my life and it would be easier than taking one step away from Alex."  
  
"She said it was okay," Natalie said after a moment. "She said that she could take care of it. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt."  
  
"She was also 'okay' when she broke up with Jason - look how that turned out," Dylan answered grimly, eyes floating open, and fingers creeping over the cellphone. Natalie took in a haggard sigh, and it was then she knew that Natalie was having as hard a time with this as she was.  
  
It should have been the three of them together getting into that place. They were the Angels. All together.  
  
But Anthony was in that ship, and with him was the key to the Sniper, the key to ending this tragedy with Seamus once and for all...  
  
Seamus would be after Natalie and Alex next, and as sure as Dylan was they could handle one inept ego sensitive cop - a man consumed by hate with an immortal's body, was a completely different story.  
  
He wouldn't stop until he killed them.  
  
Mary, as yet, hadn't crossed that line.  
  
"Let's go," she said finally, pushing off the railing, and grabbing a coil of rope that came close to tangling around her legs. "We need to think up a plan and a way in, at least we can do that while we wait for Alex to call."  
  
"Right," Natalie agreed immediately, following with careful steps. Dylan let a palm drift and linger over Chad's raincoat, saved for those wonderful occasions when the storms splashed over the deck and drenched him.  
  
She grabbed it, hoisting it over her shoulder.  
  
Natalie swept up an iron claw, grabbing the rope Dylan tossed her way.  
  
"She's in a hospital," she added, following Dylan as she shifted to grab his rain boots as well. "How much trouble can she be in?"  
  
--  
  
"You're in serious trouble." Mary wore her smug smile a little too proudly. "You know that, right?"  
  
"I took a gander," Alex responded smoothly. Her hands were hanging loose at her sides, posture the picture of relaxation, one heeled shoe daintily settled in front of the other, almost as if she was posing for the camera.  
  
It would take less than a second to move into a fighting stance, the back leg already taking the brunt of the weight, should she need to suddenly push forward into a hook kick to throw the gun aside...  
  
If Mary was dumb enough to move that close.  
  
But Mary was egotistic - not stupid.  
  
But she could be impulsive...  
  
Mary's smile only grew wider. "You know, I was wondering who would be dumb enough to come back here..."  
  
"It's not really stupidity," Alex responded. Jason coughed behind her, and she willed herself to curb the instinct to look back at him. It served as a reminder. She couldn't be impulsive here. She wasn't just bargaining for her own life here, but Jason and Pete's, and oddly enough, Spikes. "It's more of a need to get the job done, but I guess you wouldn't know too much about that."  
  
Mary shrugged. "James," she said to the detective behind her, keeping her eyes on Alex, "Close the door, lock it - make sure no one comes in."  
  
"The captain said-"  
  
"Do you take orders from the captain or from me?" she snapped.  
  
He swallowed, glancing once at Alex before nodding helplessly. "You. Sure..." Backing out, he shut the door behind him.  
  
Mary studied the floor, glancing over the blood, wincing at the shattered glass. She shook her head. "Someone's going to take the fall for this."  
  
"And I presume you already found your stooge?" Alex asked primly.  
  
Mary quirked an eyebrow, winking. "How'd you guess, baby?" Her eyes shifted, catching the discarded pants on the floor. "I knew something was wrong when that detective had a better ass than mine."  
  
"Now, wait a minute, ladies," Pete slowly stood. "I think we've got a bit of a miscommunication, here."  
  
"Shut up," Alex and Mary both said quickly.  
  
Jason, wide-eyed, prodded him. "Yeah, man. Shut up."  
  
"Lots of people have a better ass than you," Alex snapped. "I can think of at least two more - it's called exercise, Mary. You should try it!"  
  
"Why should I?" she shot back. She shook the gun slightly, indicating at the cocked metal. "That's got all I need."  
  
Alex grinned. "And that's always been your problem."  
  
Mary's smile faltered. "Excuse me?"  
  
"It's why I'm going to beat you. Beat this."  
  
"Hannibal? Can you say that in English, please?"  
  
"You never take responsibility for yourself," Alex said patiently. "You always rely on something else - and when it goes wrong, you never think back about what you could have done to prevent it - just on who you can blame. It's killing you here, with Seamus. You know that when the shit goes down - it's him that's going to blame you. And your ass is brass."  
  
The glint in Mary's eyes slowly froze from shiny to cold steel.  
  
Alex just needed a second. Just a second when Mary didn't have the gun pointed at her chest to slide in, hook a heel and stab the wrist - twirl the gun in the air, and let all hell break loose.  
  
But the wrong angle and the gun would be swiveled to Jason and Pete.  
  
Alex had to be careful.  
  
Slowly, almost out of nowhere, a little dog began to growl. Alex snuck a millisecond look. The dog, on all fours, dug his paws in Jason's lap. His lips were pulled back over his teeth, a loud rumble coming from inside his doggie throat, ears flat against his head as he slowly edged toward the end of the bed, in Mary's direction.  
  
Mary blinked, jerking her focus to the dog, eyes going wide. "Who the hell let a DOG in here?!"  
  
And Alex caught it, a fraction of panic, the smallest glimpse of it that was like a window into Mary's soul.  
  
Spike had come to her rescue yet again.  
  
Mary was afraid of dogs.  
  
--  
  
Paddy O'Malley had been banned from strip clubs for eternity.  
  
Okay, maybe not eternity, but Seamus wasn't a forgiving guy, and Paddy knew that he'd better keep his arse outta there if he knew what was good for him.  
  
Six months. Six MONTHS!  
  
You'da thought a guy woulda gotten over it.  
  
Paddy was a male. A big male - and men needed things like girls as distractions.  
  
How was he supposed to know Seamus' slut girlfriend not only was a natural redhead, but knew how to wrap herself around a pole like she was made to wrap herself around...  
  
Steps faltering, Paddy grimaced, reaching down to adjust himself before walking forward, a little awkwardly.  
  
"Yeah, Paddy," he growled to himself. "That's what you should be thinkin' about. Boning your bosses' girl. Like that didn't get the other guy in enough trouble already."  
  
Course ... that didn't mean he couldn't think about her friends.  
  
The little Asian one with the whip - the blonde with her looooooooooong legs...  
  
Bastard Charlie sure knew how to pick 'em.  
  
Smiling to himself, Paddy dug fists into his pockets, glancing back and forth over the dock of the ship.  
  
It had grown increasingly dark, the sun setting on the west, leaving this side, the east, already darkened.  
  
Paddy shivered slightly.  
  
Unhooking the gun from his belt, he practiced cocking it, aiming at the dark, imaginary shadows that came up at him.  
  
It was juvenile, and a bit childish, but Paddy had often argued (though mostly drunk at the time) that there was nothing about being an Irish Thug that wasn't just being a big kid.  
  
Who else said they wanted to be a bully for the rest of their life?  
  
It was Paddy's dream job, and he had killed to get where he was.  
  
"Yeah," he breathed, stuffing the gun into his belt. "Not going to let some little red tramp ruin that for me. And no stupid pale ghost thing either."  
  
And then he saw the ghost.  
  
It came up at him out of nowhere. Dark and forbidding in a yellow trenchcoat - just like that movie.  
  
And there was a hook emerging out of it's left hand, as it lifted, lifted...  
  
Paddy, in his panic, forgot all about his gun.  
  
The figure came closer, brandishing that claw, and the scream, stuck in the back of his throat, came out more like a squeak.  
  
"Awww... fuck!" he managed, and swiveling, he managed to get two feet in the other direction, when a red-head dressed in black, wearing a scowl and sporting a fist, quirked an eyebrow.  
  
"Red Tramp?!" Dylan hissed.  
  
Something with the force of a small truck collided with his forehead, before the world suddenly tipped up, and slammed him in the back of his head.  
  
And the lights just went out.  
  
Dylan nudged at the big thug with her feet, glaring angrily above him to her partner in crime. "Red tramp?"  
  
"Oh, but Seamus calls you a bitch and it's okay?" Natalie asked, pulling off the fisherman's hat and hefting the rope, tying it deftly to the edge of the anchor.  
  
"You know that's not the point," Dylan snapped, smoothing out Natalie's hair with a small flick of her wrist.  
  
Natalie sighed, shrugging off the rain coat and tossing it to Dylan. "I can't believe he actually fell for that."  
  
Dylan, despite the grim circumstances, couldn't help the small grin that floated on her features. "I told you, it's a classic."  
  
Natalie scoffed, motioning for Dylan to step back. "Please."  
  
Dylan rolled the rope into an arc, deftly hooking it over her elbow and palms, moving fast. "This from a woman who believes 'She's All That' is the great American romantic comedy."  
  
"Hey!" Natalie blew the bangs out of her face, stepping over the fallen forgotten thug to give Dylan a good glare. "That was a good movie!"  
  
Dylan glanced over her shoulder, a small, indiscriminate shudder rolling over her body.  
  
The last time she was here, Seamus had followed her - he had played her, and only recently, he had nearly killed her.  
  
He wanted her here to finish the job, and kill everything she loved in the process.  
  
A glance at Natalie, blonde hair shining even in the darkened sunset, and Dylan managed a smile. "Why don't we call it even?" she suggested. "Since the aforementioned stars went and got married to make bad movies together, we can say it's a truce?"  
  
Natalie's sparkling eyes light up even more at the thought. "Yeah! I never thought of that."  
  
Dylan grinned, throwing the rope, now carefully rolled and free of dangers from tangles, on the floor of the ship.  
  
"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" she asked quietly.  
  
Natalie grit her teeth, biceps flexing as she gave a small shout, throwing the heavy metal up over the deck. It landed with a clank.  
  
"I'm going to be fine," she answered, tugging on the rope, making sure it held. "It's you and Alex I'm worried about."  
  
The connotation behind the tone indicated there was much Natalie wanted to say to her, and was waiting for the eye of the storm to let loose.  
  
For once, Dylan was glad they were still stuck in the hurricane.  
  
Crossing her arms, Dylan glanced at the ground, nudging the Lap Dance Loving thug with one booted foot. "Nat-"  
  
"Listen. We're only going in there to size up the situation before we hear from Alex. Find Anthony, find Seamus, but don't get involved. Please - I won't let them touch you." Natalie's voice was uncharacteristically hard, clipped in a warning note that told Dylan that it was different this time. Something had shifted.  
  
The gun, hard and cold against her spine, may had had something to do with it.  
  
Dylan had crashed through a window and had ribs broken by her best friend the last time she tried to do things on her own. Natalie and Alex, without question, had come after her, saved her and helped her without judgement or reservation.  
  
Maybe she had been right about it all along, maybe they had been wrong, but that didn't matter.  
  
Madison Lee must have thought she was right when she went off on the De Sota case alone, too.  
  
"Fine," she said finally. She could do that. She could look at Seamus and look at Anthony and not crumble inside.  
  
Even with the tightness in her chest that was suffocating her, even with her eyes stinging, and her throat raw and aching, she could do it.  
  
Because Natalie had asked her to.  
  
Their places had shifted, and now - the distraction was her.  
  
Hardness couldn't hold on Natalie. She just wasn't made that way. In the next instance, she had a generous smile on her face, tender and sympathetic, before she gently chucked at Dylan's chin, and swept a finger lovingly across her cheek.  
  
"Got the mike on?"  
  
"Testing," Dylan said obediently.  
  
"All right," Natalie said, voice now chirping in her ear as well as the real thing, two feet away. "I'll be right there. I won't leave you, Dylan."  
  
Dylan smiled, bobbing her head in a nod, wincing as she knelt down and pulled the belt out of Thug Boy's pants, weaving together his hands.  
  
"Hey Dylan?"  
  
Glancing up, Dylan discovered Natalie's hesitant form frozen, hands ready to hoist herself up on the rope.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"It'd be too much to ask for the gun, wouldn't it?"  
  
The tone was defeated, resigned, but ironically, with the slightest twinge of hope that a miracle would occur. So Natalie.  
  
So heartbreaking, when Dylan couldn't say no.  
  
"I... don't think so, Nat." She managed a small twitch of her lips. "Sorry."  
  
Blue eyes closing to reign in the emotion, Natalie let out a long, tension relieving breath. "Yeah... me too."  
  
With that, one hand began to move over the other, and Natalie, using her rope, hoisted herself up in the air, over the side of the boat.  
  
Dylan stood - once again cursing her ribs as she pulled on the raincoat, kicked away Thug Guy's gun.  
  
Getting Natalie in was easy-  
  
Now came the hard part.  
  
--  
  
"You know," Alex began, crossing her arms and stepping back a half step. "I can't wait for the moment when I get to kick your ass."  
  
Mary's eyes shifted nervously from the dog, who now began to bark, filling the room with noise.  
  
"Honey," she began, a breathless laugh diffusing the acidity of the statement, "I don't get myself dirty."  
  
"Sweetie, you're so full of stink now you couldn't dig yourself out of it if you tried." Mary's smile froze. Alex cocked her head, smirking slightly. "What? You don't think I know you? I'm a certified genius, Mary. I'm an on- call consultant for NASA and had a World Class Chess Championship and a Gold Medal in Gymnastics to my name before I hit fourteen."  
  
"Woooa," Jason said, nodding in approval. "That explains a lot!" Moving to Pete, he gave a nudge. "She's just really flexib-"  
  
"Jason!" Alex twirped, mouth frozen in irritation. "Honey, I love you but - kinda ruining my intimidating cutting speech, here!"  
  
"Oh, right. Sorry."  
  
Spike, still barking up a storm, now nearly falling off the corner off the bed in his energy, wasn't helping much either.  
  
"You wanna control your pets?" Mary asked wryly. Her control was there, but she was teetering.  
  
Alex only grinned, slowly, subtly, twisting to that Mary's gun now pointed at her, into the very safe bathroom.  
  
"What makes you think you could ever beat me, Mary? I'm younger. I'm prettier. I'm bitchier- and I don't take orders from Irish thugs."  
  
Mary's smile was now only instinct. Her fingers were wrapped tightly over the gun, and now it seemed to tremble.  
  
"No," she answered with effort. "You take orders from a billionaire playboy that you've never seen."  
  
Alex nodded. "I don't see him in here now, do you?" The threat didn't have to be spoken. It was insinuated, and Mary was dully intimidated. It was almost too easy. Alex sighed, hands on her hips. "I'm bored. I'm leaving."  
  
"You're not going anywhere. There are ten cops outside the door right now, and they're all ready to book you for impersonating an officer, tampering with evidence, disabling a crime scene - at the very least, sweetie."  
  
"Who said I'm taking the front door?" Alex sighed, and the glare that came from behind her eyes was complete and angry.  
  
"Spike?" Jason inserted, tone flat and furious. "Sick her."  
  
It happened like clockword.  
  
Spike jumped off the bed with an obedient yelp. Mary cursed and swung the gun crazily in the dog's direction. In half a second, her arm was blocked and the gun's aim was circumvented with a heel dug into Mary's wrist and an ankle shook the gun out of her grip.  
  
Mary felt the blinding force of an uppercut, that snapped her head back like a rubber band, sending her sprawling back, hands cutting on the glass as Spike yelped excitedly.  
  
The door crashed open, hitting her squarely in the head, and making her slump to the side as officers flooded into the room, guns drawn.  
  
"What happened?!"  
  
Alex wasn't in the room.  
  
Mary groaned, rubbing at her head, and pointing to the window. "She went out there!"  
  
Pushing off an officer who tried to help her to her feet, she hobbled forward, leaning out the window, and finding nothing but the alley before.  
  
"Crap. This isn't spiderman." Leaning back, she glanced up. "The roof. The roof! Everyone- OUT! Let's GO!"  
  
But the small room was packed with officers, and when one rushed forward, Pete suddenly decided to grab the dog, rolling right under the blue clad legs.  
  
The officer went down, and right behind him, another tangled in his legs, and pushed a third down with him, who in turn accidentally swept under the legs of the fifth and sixth.  
  
When the dust settled, all ten officers were on the floor, knotted in arms and legs, with a proud Mary sprawled on top, legs sticking up in the air.  
  
Pete had to force the smile off his face, straightening his expression for what he hoped was an apologetic grin, holding the squirming dog to him, and circling around the heap.  
  
"I'm so... so... sorry," he said. "I didn't- I was just getting my dog!"  
  
"GET OFF ME!" Mary growled, wavering as she teetered on her heels, pulling at her blazer and pushing another officer out of her face. "Everyone OUT! NOW! YOU!" she growled, pointing a finger at Pete. "You're under arrest for... obstruction of justice! And YOU!" she snapped at the dog. "You're going to the POUND for an appointment with the crypt keeper. And YOU!-" she turned, flashing her eyes at Jason.  
  
But the actor only smiled. "Ah-Ah!" His grin widened as he pointed to the cellphone he held in his hand, open. "That's my publicist on the other line. He's just heard the whole thing. You wanna keep talking?"  
  
Mary simmered, shifting glances between the officers in various states of pain on the floor, to the smiling Pete and growling dog - to the smug Jason.  
  
"I hate actors. Let's go!" Mary pushed another uniform, kicked a third in the rear, and pulled out her gun. "Catch her before she gets to the car!"  
  
Pete sat down carefully in his chair, struggling to keep his dog from squirming out of his lap.  
  
Jason closed the phone, placing it on the dresser. "He put me on hold. But she doesn't know that."  
  
Pete laughed. "Great."  
  
Jason smiled, settling back in his chair, before a thought crossed his mind, and made him bolt up. Immediately, he winced, yelping in pain, and managing. "Wait - did we just saved Alex?"  
  
Pete considered. "I think we gave her a little bit of time, yeah."  
  
"HA! I'm SO THE MAN!" Jason raised his fists triumphantly. "We're SO THE MEN! The 'getting my dog' thing was classic!"  
  
"Learned it from Nat," Pete said with a smile.  
  
"Allright, man! We rule! Jason Gibbons! Action Star!"  
  
"And bodyguard," Pete added.  
  
"And KICK ASS BODYGUARD! And spike!"  
  
The subsequent high five made him double over with pain, but for once, Jason didn't care.  
  
The cheers and hoots didn't stop for a full five minutes.  
  
--  
  
end chapter 


	17. Chapter Seventeen: Eggs in a Basket

Chapter Seventeen: Eggs in a Basket  
  
Alex's palms were scratched and bleeding slightly from the roughness of the brick as she lowered herself down the fire escape.  
  
She barely felt it.  
  
Her body moved instinctively, breathing hard and even, in and out, as she wrapped fingers around the iron and manipulated her body, twisting like the gymnast she was to get a grip on the rung below it.  
  
The Sunset hospital had ten floors.  
  
It took Alex less than thirty seconds to hit the ground, stilettos causing a jarring jolt up her heel that she didn't register, before she carefully slinked against the brick.  
  
Her car, (or, in this case, Anthony's car) an escape that was only across the street, was blocked by scads of reporters and cops milling about.  
  
Closing her eyes, she took a breath, carefully wiping the blood on her hands away on the inside of her shirt, combing through her hair as best she could.  
  
From her pocket, she removed a pair of glasses, a tube of lipstick, and her set of keys.  
  
It was fine. Alex wasn't worried.  
  
It was simply a matter of walking through.  
  
Biting her lip in anticipation, Alex allowed one precious second to scan the crowd.  
  
On the fringe of the chaos, a bored looking reporter was making his way to her end of the building, digging in his pockets for what she guessed could have been a cigarette.  
  
She smirked. "Like I tell Dylan, those things will kill you," she whispered matter-of-factly.  
  
The young man smiled, presumably finding his pack.  
  
He never got a chance to reach for them. In two seconds she had pulled him into the alley, slammed him against the wall, and wrapped an able palm around his throat.  
  
"Jacob Wriley? ABC News?" His response a startled nod. Alex grimaced. "I'm very sorry about this."  
  
With a prim smile, Alex gave a swift squeeze, twisting her fingers carefully and quickly.  
  
As he slumped to the floor, Alex removed the microphone and pressbadge, patting the unconscious man gratefully on the head before stepping out.  
  
Entering the swarm of reporters, she held her microphone deftly, barking orders to her imaginary cameraman, moving swiftly, shouldering past cops and reporters alike.  
  
Mary Briggs pushed her way outside, a flood of uniformed officers following her, guns drawn. The sharp-eyed woman spotted her in less than five seconds, just as Alex was ten feet from the car.  
  
With a shout and a grin, Mary began to point, moving with the cops in her direction.  
  
"Look!" Alex shouted, flapping her arms in commotion. "Mary Briggs! Ms. Briggs! Some questions!" She rushed forward, and like lemmings, the reporters followed.  
  
Mary's steps faltered, looking almost wild-eyed as the pack of reporters converged, shoving microphones in her face, and effectively blocking her path.  
  
Ha.  
  
With a smile and a wave, Alex dropped the microphone, jogging as well as she could the last few steps to Anthony's black convertible, popping the handle, and sliding inside.  
  
"MOVE!" Mary barked. "Get out of my way - YOU STEPPED ON MY FOOT!"  
  
Slamming down on the clutch, Alex twisted the car ignition. The engine sputtered into a wonderfully oiled purr.  
  
With a grim smile, she glanced back, and then forward.  
  
Her nemesis was now waving her gun almost maniacally.  
  
Alex winked, blew her an air kiss, and jerked the wheel.  
  
Mary only had time to skid back when the car veered dangerously in her direction, and sped down the street.  
  
The reporters now scattered, each moving to their vans, screeching into the microphones, cameramen hobbling to catch up.  
  
In the chaos, Mary's face was a myriad of rage and fear.  
  
"God, this isn't good," she whispered. Taking in a breath, she spoke louder, tone almost singsong as she slid her gun back into her blazer, bitter twang on her drawl. "Let's go boys, we got ourselves a chase."  
  
--  
  
Bosley was tired of being the only one showing up for work.  
  
Like the wishful thinking sap that he was, every day he opened the office, spruced up, duds on, waiting on the edge of the desk for that eight o'clock call from Charlie.  
  
For the past couple days, he had been waiting alone.  
  
It wasn't that Bosley wasn't used to the girls not showing up. Sometimes on their cases, they had to miss a meeting or two, cause of being in China, or Mongolia, or being stuck at the bottom of a bottomless pit somewhere. Bosley wasn't going to fault them that.  
  
But God-Dangit - this was a place of business!  
  
You didn't just go running out on your job because you were wanted by the law!  
  
"Shit," Bosley said, grumbling as he sank further in his seat. "I've been wanted by the law hundreds of time, you don't see me running away like some scared little ferret!"  
  
Charlie's call had come and gone without event. Bosley had felt slightly bad about telling him that there was no news, but the old boy seemed chipper as ever.  
  
"That's alright, Bosley," he said warmly. "Just let me know if there's any change in the situation."  
  
"Sure will, sir," Bosley said dutifully. "I'll track those skinny crazy girls all the way to Russia if I have to."  
  
The rest of the afternoon had been spent watching ESPN on the big LCD screen.  
  
Of course, Bosley had managed to put on the closed captioning and had spent the last hour and a half trying to figure out how to turn it off.  
  
Instead he managed to have the thing start talking in Spanish, too.  
  
"Blasted piece of shi-"  
  
The phone rang, making an already jumpy Bosley nearly fly off the leather seat. Slipping over the edge, he felt the rump go, barely managing to catch himself before he fell to the floor.  
  
"God-dammit!" he groused, heaving himself up and floundering for the phone. Finally getting his fingers over it, he forgot the nice, polite greeting he normally used in favor of, "Whatchoo want?"  
  
"Bosley!"  
  
The shock that came from hearing the unexpected caller made him lose his grip, and Bosley fell out of the seat altogether.  
  
"WOAH!"  
  
"Bosley?! Are you okay?"  
  
Scrambling up, Bosley somehow managed to keep his grip on the phone, slamming it against his ear.  
  
"DYLAN?!"  
  
"Hey, Bos."  
  
"Don't you 'Hey Bos' me, girl! Where the hell have you been?"  
  
The voice hesitated. "Well, it's kind of a long story."  
  
"I got the time."  
  
"I don't," Dylan said quickly. "Bos, we need a favor."  
  
Bosley bristled, plucking at his tie as he growled back, "Oh, no, girl. You don't get to do that. You don't run off and start acting all renegade and then just call me up and ask me-"  
  
"Bosley."  
  
"What?"  
  
The sweetest little twang came from her voice as it lilted up slightly. "Please?"  
  
Damn.  
  
Damn. Damn. Damn.  
  
His resistance fell faster than a wet tissue.  
  
With a bittersweet sigh, Bosley closed his eyes and wished he had something better to do that listen to Angels in his head.  
  
"Fine."  
  
--  
  
Natalie's abs definitely needed more exercise.  
  
Making a mental note, she grit her teeth, keeping her stomach tight as she lowered her body, hair now swinging down below her while her legs curled around the beam.  
  
The blood rushing to her head was slightly uncomfortable, but she was still able to focus, as she glanced at the landing below her and quickly twisted herself up, tugging to make sure the anchor held.  
  
Criss-crossing her legs over the rope, she finally let go, sliding down, and then gritting her teeth, ignoring the burn of the rope against her palms as she stopped just as the long blonde strands of hair were painting the floor.  
  
Blowing out a relieved sigh, she dropped, rolling into a ball to absorb the impact and coming up easily.  
  
The area she had entered was empty, but Nat wasn't taking chances.  
  
Ducking back into the shadows, she carefully tapped at her molar mike, whispering carefully, "I'm free."  
  
Dylan didn't answer. More than likely she was still occupied. She wasn't inside yet. There was nothing to worry about.  
  
But Natalie wouldn't feel completely at ease until this was all over with, even if she didn't want to know how it would all end.  
  
Static in her ear made her wince, and she gasped as she crouched, reaching a finger to her ear.  
  
"God!"  
  
"Natalie?!"  
  
The tinny voice that barely managed to come through was Alex. At least Natalie thought so. The noise behind her friend's gravely tone seemed to be a loud cacophony of sirens, shouts, and honks.  
  
"Alex?"  
  
"Hey." Alex's tone was breathless, strained. "Just... uh... wanted to let you know I might be a little late to the festivities."  
  
"What's going on?"  
  
"Your standard car chase," Alex answered hurriedly.  
  
"Are you serious?"  
  
"Oh, yeah, I'm serious - hold on-" A loud screech was heard, along with some sorts of shouts, and Alex came back. "Sorry about that."  
  
"Alex, please don't die today."  
  
"Please. At this rate I'll be there in ten minutes."  
  
"Just be here alive."  
  
"I don't plan on dying," Alex snorted. Natalie shook her head, leaning against the wall to gather herself. As if anything else could go wrong. "I could use a little back up, though - get me out of this?"  
  
Her eyes snapped open, and her mouth twisted into a smirk.  
  
"We're already on it, babe."  
  
--  
  
So far only NBC, CBS and FOX had managed to pick up on the car chase. Mary had ordered a clear airspace, but the damned helicopters were coming as close as they could.  
  
Sitting in the passenger seat, she found herself battling her captain on the phone, barking at him as the flustered detective beside her lurched, sweat beading on his forehead.  
  
"Will you watch it?!"  
  
"She's like - a maniac!"  
  
"Yes, well - it takes one to know one." Shutting the phone with a clip, she shoved on her seat belt, eyes now on the narrow blur of the black car that was weaving expertly through traffic.  
  
So now she was a race car driver too? What the hell? Was there anything these bitches weren't able to do?  
  
"I hate them," she muttered.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"Shut up and drive," she snapped.  
  
This was just peachy. Chances are - Alex would get away, and she would lose them again, and she was just getting tired. She wasn't up to doing this ten times a day.  
  
These girls were like Energizer Bunnies.  
  
Her phone vibrated on her hip, and without a second's hesitation, she unclipped it and pressed it to her ear. "Briggs." The caller was quick, concise. Her eyes flew open. "Are you sure?" He responded in the affirmative.  
  
Mary licked her lips. "Holy shit."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Shut up and keep driving," she snapped. The detective narrowed his eyes, but looked back toward the road.  
  
Mary shut off the phone, sinking further into the passenger seat as her eyes followed the black car as it swerved in and out, getting farther and farther away by the second.  
  
"I'll be damned..." she whispered.  
  
It was perfect. It was just perfect.  
  
Every little stress pick that had been sticking her in the head, and the arm, and every other part of her body, could be done away with in one, simple move.  
  
It'd be like it never happened.  
  
Except, she just might come out of it with not only her career intact, but another commendation.  
  
Hell, yeah.  
  
Opening her phone, she deliberately dialed numbers, listening to the ring with a satisfying warm feeling in her stomach that made her think of hot chocolate.  
  
When he picked up, she had nothing else to say to him, but, "Marlin, they're all going Irish."  
  
He knew what she meant.  
  
"Who's Marlin?" the detective asked curiously.  
  
"Shut up and drive," she snapped automatically. Her mind caught up with her, and with a lazy smile, she said, "Actually, take that exit there. I feel like stopping at Starbucks, don't you?"  
  
--  
  
Bosley's telltale nervous exhale made Dylan smile.  
  
"Well," he said shakily. "I did it."  
  
Dylan's sigh rattled her ribs. She kept her head against the crate, body relaxed, if only for the moment. "You're the best, Bos."  
  
"I hope you ladies know what we're doing."  
  
Her eyes opened. Wincing, she grabbed hold of the crate and pulled herself up, glancing over the top to see the guard standing near the boat.  
  
"I know we know what we're doing," she said matter-of-factly. "We'll see you soon, Bos."  
  
"You better."  
  
"Love you," she answered. "Gotta go."  
  
She cut off his rambling, "Crazy ass white girls-" speech in favor of placing her phone into the pocket of her jeans. Tapping twice at her cheek, she found the connection, opening it up as the molar mike kicked in.  
  
"Poetry in motion," she said quickly. "How's the limericks?"  
  
--  
  
The cargo area was one of the most heavily guarded.  
  
Natalie was sweating, arms shaking from exertion, but she kept her movement still, hands still pushing hard against the boxes, watching the men as they filed past right under her.  
  
She waited until they turned the corner, and silently dropped down.  
  
Wiping back the bangs, she glanced around, shimmying down the small walkway between cargo.  
  
"Jack be nimble," she whispered firmly, maneuvering a free plan into her hand with a twist of her foot and a deft catch. "I'll be watching."  
  
--  
  
Gritting her teeth, Alex jerked the wheel in a hard right, tasting the burn of the tires as the gravel spit up at the car, trinkling dangerously down the windshield.  
  
Still, it was enough to clip into the police car directly behind her, tipping it over her, and rolling into the camper right before her.  
  
There was a loud crash, and she had to jerk the wheel again to avoid hitting the collision, but she managed only a minor dent and now there were only two cars behind her.  
  
"Jack be quick," she said with a grim smile. "I'll be there."  
  
Her voice was almost drowned out by sirens.  
  
--  
  
Poetry in Motion.  
  
Dylan felt her heart beat slow down. She never realized it was beating as fast as it was until she felt the shift, a thump in her rib cage that made her bite her lip, closer her eyes for a half a second.  
  
Anthony was in there, with Seamus.  
  
Natalie and Alex were sure taking a hell of a lot on faith.  
  
Swallowing hard, she made her choice. She wouldn't disappoint them.  
  
With a ragged breath, she answered, "Jack jumped over the candlestick. I'll see you on the inside."  
  
With two taps, she cut off the molar mike.  
  
She couldn't do this hearing the sirens, feeling Natalie's heavy breath in her ear.  
  
She had to do it alone.  
  
Biting down on her lower lip, she jerked her arm behind her back, slipping the weapon free.  
  
It was black and smooth, sleek.  
  
Charlie had mandated after Madison Lee that Angels were never to use guns unless absolutely necessary - which should have been never. There was always another way.  
  
She had never questioned him before, and had vowed never to, after Madison.  
  
Gently, she placed the gun on the ground, moving her palm away from it.  
  
With effort, she moved her gaze from it, forcing her concentration instead on the boat.  
  
Anthony.  
  
She couldn't do it.  
  
Dropping to the ground, she closed her fingers over the gun, hating herself for her weakness.  
  
Pushing it into the holster on her back, she let her shirt cover it, and rose from her haunches.  
  
Natalie had snuck in using terror as her weapon. Alex was more or less going to blast her way in.  
  
Dylan had a simpler approach.  
  
She was walking right in.  
  
One foot in front of the other, she pasted a gorgeous smirk of a smile on her face as the guard finally spotted her.  
  
He froze, unsure of what to think of her striding up to casually. By the time he figured he should react, she already had her fist in his face.  
  
He crashed to the ground.  
  
Already used to this type of entrance, another had a gun pressed to her back before she had a chance to turn.  
  
It didn't bother her.  
  
Seamus would want to kill her herself.  
  
Turning around slowly, she kept her arms up and out of the way as she asked simply, "You going to let me in?"  
  
He regarded her, eyes roving up and down, before motioning with a jerk of the gun to the doorway.  
  
With a small, polite nod, Dylan made her way up to the open hatch, stepping and disappearing in the darkness.  
  
--  
  
Okay, she would admit it.  
  
This was a tiny bit stressful.  
  
Alex was sweating, and more than ever she wished for driving gloves as she slammed the clutch and shifted the gear, eyes flipping from the rear view mirror to the chaos of the maze that was right before her.  
  
With a twist, she zipped between a volkswagon and a Mercedes, winking at the staring business man on the cell phone before nearly cutting him off.  
  
Behind her, sirens kept blaring, warning cars ahead of her that she was coming.  
  
That really sucked, because it slowed them down and made her job that much harder.  
  
With a ragged sigh, she saw her chance to lose another two.  
  
Okay...  
  
One deep breath in , and she slammed the breaks, arms aching against the strain as the car swiveled, dangerously close to running out of control.  
  
The cars, now suddenly faced with a game of chicken, freaked out, swerving on either side of her - one toppling into the oncoming traffic lane, and another over the curb and into the embankment.  
  
Heh.  
  
Alex smiled, shifting gears and getting back into the fast lane, free for at least a few minutes.  
  
Looking down at the radio, something caught her attention.  
  
She grit her teeth, wanting more than anything to wipe the sweat off her brow, heart pounding erratically.  
  
"What the hell," she muttered. "When in Rome..."  
  
She pressed play.  
  
Frank Sinatra crooned his way into the car, and this time, Alex found herself smiling, bobbing her head to the music as she swerved side ways to avoid a truck and nearly collided with a Jetta, who honked angrily.  
  
Fly me to the moon  
  
Let me play among the stars Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars...  
  
--  
  
From this angle, he looked pathetic.  
  
Thin form was slumped, hunched over, head down, chin against his chest.  
  
The black suit, eloquent and expensive, was marred with blotches of a dark color that was indistinguishable against the suit.  
  
The shadows played starkly against his sharp features, making him look like some sort of vampire.  
  
Bangs fell forward, free of the gell that he liked so much.  
  
And dripping from his nose, over his chin, and splashing messily on the floor, were red trickles of blood.  
  
Seamus regarded him.  
  
He was a fascinating man. The Thin Man refused to look up, merely raised the smoking cigarette to his lips, biting down and taking a long, shaky drag.  
  
When he brought down the cigarette, the tip of it, and his fingers were painted blood red.  
  
He smirked, chuckling slightly.  
  
"Gotta admit," he found himself saying sincerely. "Even if ya are a murderin' bastard, I kinda like ya."  
  
He didn't respond. Then again, he never did. Trying to control the man was like trying to control a snake.  
  
Maybe that's why it was so much fun.  
  
"I'm a regular snake charmer, I am," Seamus muttered.  
  
A motion from a sailor caught his attention, and he wasn't ashamed to say, his heart skipped a beat just slightly.  
  
He had waited years for this.  
  
As he passed the Thin Man, he pushed at the back of his head companionably.  
  
Anthony never regarded him.  
  
Seamus didn't care.  
  
He was almost giddy.  
  
"'Bout time she made it," he said with a drawl. "I was beginnin' ta think she had missed the invitation."  
  
With long, powerful strides, he moved toward the doors.  
  
--  
  
end chapter 


	18. Chapter Eighteen: The Steel Trap

Chapter Eighteen: The Steel Trap  
  
She had encountered only one sailor on her way to the main Cargo, and he had been hopelessly inept.  
  
It was like watching an eighties horror movie, tossing the piece of trash just in front so he could come to investigate, only to get a face full of plank as his reward.  
  
Natalie pursed her lips, dropping the wood down beside him.  
  
"God," she whispered. "Didn't you people ever watch 'Scream'?"  
  
Head shaking in morose disappointment, she carefully extended one slender leg around the body, moving forward as quickly and as quietly as she could.  
  
Heels were a beautiful, beautiful thing, but even she had to admit, that Dylan had a point - although they fit the Angel's flashy styles, to wear them when one was trying not to make big clattery noises was almost impossible.  
  
Then again, Angels always did things that were almost impossible, so it didn't seem to be much of a problem.  
  
She made it to the end of the hallway without a sound, the growl of the engines turning covering up her footsteps quite well.  
  
Almost to her destination, Natalie wondered if she was the luckiest of the three.  
  
Dylan was essentially setting herself up as bait, definitely not the smartest move that they had ever come up with - but one that in desperation required the trust that had almost been lost, sorely needed now.  
  
Alex was in the middle of a car chase. A freaking car chase. And chances were she was enjoying herself.  
  
All Natalie had to do get to Seamus' office, in what was probably the most highly guarded area of the ship.  
  
Piece of cake.  
  
Sliding closer to the wall, Natalie kept her breathing even, eyes narrowed into slits as she kept her focus on the task before her.  
  
Turning the corner, her task fell to pieces.  
  
In the center of what had to have been the largest, darkest room she had yet encountered on Seamus' ship, sat a thin man, mouth bruised with blood, cloaked by two sailors with huge biceps and mean frowns.  
  
One jerked his head in her direction, and instinctively, Natalie ducked back, hands pressed against the cold metal of the ship walls, eyes closing in frustration.  
  
"Dylan," she whispered, tapping at her cheek.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Crap.  
  
The blonde let out her breath, looking back at the room that held Anthony.  
  
Crap.  
  
--  
  
Either they had grossly underestimated her, or Seamus was playing a bigger card than she had imagined.  
  
Cold steel of a muzzle seeped through the thin cotton of her shirt, leaving behind a chill.  
  
Even the ship itself was cold, silent darkness that permeated into her soul, driving her own ambitions, her own fears.  
  
Dylan felt the goosebumps rise as soon as the dank, stale air hit her nostrils.  
  
One foot in front of the other, her ears strained, hands carefully waiting at her sides while he took a nervous step with her.  
  
He hadn't said anything yet, which was somewhat of a disadvantage. Dylan could usually tell with even one syllable where her enemy was on the 'frightened to scared shitliss' list, and since she couldn't even see if the gun was shaking or not, she was taking a gamble.  
  
It was almost frightening how much she didn't care.  
  
The light that filtered in from the open door was quickly disappearing. Waiting with baited breath, Dylan used it, counting beats as the darkness closed in around.  
  
The metal door slammed shut behind her.  
  
Like the crack of a whip, Dylan's foot kicked back like a mule, slamming against the wrist that held the gun. Ignoring the searing heat that came from her ribs, Dylan grit her teeth to drown out the resulting cry of pain, using the emotion for energy to duck under the hand wielding the knife, twist it easily in her grip. Too stunned to do much fighting back, he held agreeably still while she wrapped a leg around his thigh, knocking him off balance and sending him careening to the ground, cracking his head against the hard ground.  
  
Like a stunned animal, he froze for a short beat of time, and suddenly jerked up -  
  
To be hindered by his own gun tipping it's muzzle against his forehead.  
  
Dylan was neither sympathetic nor overly cruel.  
  
In the grand scheme of this plan, he was nothing but a tool.  
  
But he must have seen something in her expression, in the cold darkness of her eyes - perhaps equated it to Seamus himself, because his own orbs widened with fear, and he very nearly forgot to breathe.  
  
"Thanks," Dylan said softly. A quick pivot and a hard right, and suddenly her boot connected forcefully against his chin, cracking it to the side, and blanking him out completely.  
  
A curious, suffocating emotion had taken over Dylan's body. It resulted in her throat suddenly closing in on her, her breathing to quicken, and her mouth to gasp in and out.  
  
Still, she ignored the stinging signal of tears to dismantle the gun, dropping the pieces in front of him, and pushing the bullet clip into her boots.  
  
Bending over sent a sharp, horrid spike of pain from her ribs to her brain, and she almost tumbled over, hands flailing for the door.  
  
Shit. Shit.  
  
Eyes closing, Dylan began to breathe, in and out, quickly and quiet, and deep.  
  
She couldn't get deep enough.  
  
Where there was flaming heat, now came dull throbs, and with it her ability to focus.  
  
Two taps to her cheek brought a small click in her ear, and in a husky, monotone, she whispered, "I'm in."  
  
"Dylan! Oh, thank God!"  
  
Stepping away from the door, Dylan carefully eyed the entrance. Footsteps clanked over her, and with a wary stare, she moved into the adjoining hallway, palms smoothing against the wall. "Nat? What is it?"  
  
"Anthony's here, Dylan."  
  
"We knew that," she answered flatly.  
  
"He's ... in bad shape."  
  
Her palm suddenly crinkled into a fist, scratching along the wall with vicious creaks that echoed down the hallway. "Where?"  
  
"Cargo Room A. I can wait for you and we-"  
  
"No." Moisture had fluttered away, and Dylan had to lick her lips in an attempt to get it back. "No. There's no time. I'll do it."  
  
"Dylan-"  
  
"Do what you came here to do, Natalie. I'll take care of it. We know what I'm here for."  
  
There was no sound from the other girl. Dylan waited, moving continuously. Natalie had no argument. She knew it had to be her.  
  
Standard Action Hero Failsafe Rules.  
  
"Be careful," she said finally. "I'll be watching."  
  
"You'd better," Dylan answered flatly. "I can't do it alone."  
  
"I'm right here, Velma."  
  
"Why does she get to be Velma?" Alex floated in, noisy behind her sirens. "I have the dark hair."  
  
"You know - I thought that Pineapple fortune girl looked a little like you, Alex-"  
  
A bitter smile of affection floated on her lips. With a shake of her head, Dylan tapped her cheek twice, effectively cutting them off.  
  
--  
  
"-told Jason if he told me one more time that I looked like that girl-"  
  
"Alex?" Natalie interrupted.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Why don't you concentrate on getting here?" she said gently. Her voice was low, and yet it still seemed to vibrate against the walls, creating an echo of sound. How had they not found her yet?  
  
"Yeah," Alex breathed deeper. "I'll be there."  
  
"Love you."  
  
"Love you more if you get me out of this."  
  
"Already done," she answered. "Give it time."  
  
--  
  
Give it time.  
  
Right.  
  
There wasn't more time that Alex could really give.  
  
For the moment, she was alone. Losing the cars had been almost remarkably easy, but she wasn't surprised.  
  
And she still wasn't taking chances.  
  
Her arms, already aching, were now beginning to shake for release from the wheel. Her palms slipped repeatedly, covered in sweat.  
  
And there was a little spot on her nose that itched. Alex never touched her face if she could help it, and even now, she thought of it as just another form of torture, dealt with easily enough.  
  
She was almost there.  
  
She could beat them.  
  
San Pedro - the exit loomed up at her, and with a quick glance back, she jerked the wheel, careening up the ramp with a jolt of relief.  
  
Until the figure standing in the middle of the exit ramp loomed up before her.  
  
Alex cursed, foot stomping on the brake and battling the wheel as she managed as best she could to stop the car before it plowed into Mary Briggs.  
  
--  
  
The car burst forward with an acrid smell of burning tires and a screeching sound that threatened to make her deaf.  
  
Mary Briggs didn't move.  
  
Hands braced on her hips, her expression was a smug, confident smile. Alex Munday had been right. It was impossible to beat these women. They were the best there was at their game.  
  
It was because of their sheer predictability that she knew she was going to win.  
  
And she wouldn't have to move a foot to do it.  
  
The black convertible, coming upon her like a big, grotesque, black roach was slightly intimidating.  
  
But Mary didn't care.  
  
She wasn't going to be intimidated by them anymore. She was going to let them do what they did, and let them die while they were at it.  
  
Just like she knew it would, the car stopped closed enough to kiss her knees.  
  
She could see her - beautiful and distant, dark almond eyes glistening with frayed emotion, hair sticking to her amazingly clear skin with beaded sweat.  
  
And here was Mary, hair perfect, cool as a cucumber.  
  
The revelation brought a wide, sincere smile to her face. She gave a gracious nod in the direction of Alex, who in turn bobbed her head back.  
  
'See you soon', Mary mouthed. Stepping two steps to the side, she gave an over emphasized bow, motioning with a sweep of her palm.  
  
The way was clear, road there for Alex to take.  
  
She took it.  
  
The engine roared at her, and her hair and her skirt were unceremoniously sprinkled with dust as Alex veered past her.  
  
Off the concrete, off the road, past the roadblock, and zipping away.  
  
Like a pro.  
  
Shaking her head, Mary raised the walkie-talkie slowly to her mouth.  
  
"Don't follow her," she said crisply. An officer beside her made a show of beginning to protest, but she snapped again, "Don't follow her!" Lower, she stepped back on the road, eyes narrowing as she disappeared off the freeway. "Trust me. We have time."  
  
--  
  
It was relatively safe to say that they were running out of time.  
  
Dylan wasn't sure what she was feeling.  
  
There was literal pain - and yet her mind was so muddled, and yet so clear - she knew that it had to come from the ribs, but couldn't make herself believe it.  
  
Her approach to any situation had never been the straight line.  
  
Sure, she liked to get things done, and she had no problem with focusing when lives depended on it, but Dylan was always one to have a little fun while doing it - whether joking in a bathroom with Natalie in drag about Corwin's - ahem - size, or convincing the blonde to stay back and flirt with a bartender while on a search for a killer. Alex tended to focus - which had resulted more than once in an always amusing situation where a hopeful suitor got cut down with a "No", an "Uh-uh" and once, on a particularly stressful case, Dylan even managed to get an 'Oh, fuck off!' out of her.  
  
For once, she finally understood Alex's focus - her drive, because it seemed nothing had ever been so important as this was.  
  
She had no idea what she and Anthony had. She knew what he was, what he stood for. She knew that they had been crossing lines in the sand and constantly erasing and redrawing them. She knew that Seamus would rather kill them both than let either of them get away from this alive.  
  
She also knew the man who had held her, however briefly, and it wasn't LIKE Dylan to get all fucking emotional after what was essentially a one-night stand, because even then she knew there was no future there-  
  
But her heart was unmistakably broken, and the only way she could even begin to try to mend it together was to look at Anthony and at least try to figure it out.  
  
Seamus wasn't going to stand in her way. And neither were a few guards.  
  
He resembled a broken puppet, with his posture on that metal chair.  
  
Her boots clicking hollow sounds on the floor alerted the guards, but they never even had a chance to pull their knives and guns before they were both flat on the ground, one with a broken knee, the other's leg twisted in an almost grotesque way.  
  
That was as much attention as she gave them.  
  
Anthony's pale blue eyes didn't sparkle the way they had. Instead they were almost a slate color, dark enough to make a difference. Crusted blood lined his lips and nose, a vague mimic of a mustache.  
  
"Oh God," she whispered, dropping down onto her knees. Carefully, she tipped his chin up with one gentle finger. Her sleeve, held to her fist with her fingers, rubbed gently at his mouth, cleaning him as best she could. "Anthony..."  
  
His name, voiced by three syllables on her tongue, proved to be too much. Her eyes blurred and she blinked them away hastily, taking in a gulping breath as she smiled grimly at him.  
  
Anthony's bangs framing his forehead like that of a little boy's, a stark contrast from the sharp, pale outlines of his features. He held no expression, but upon finally seeing her, the cigarette dropped to the floor beside him.  
  
One slender palm moved wonderingly to her face, as if he had to make sure she was real. Her fingers, framing his face, didn't move away, not even when his fingers tangled in her nape, when she felt the beginnings of the pull.  
  
If he needed this, she would give it to him. She owed him that much.  
  
Her breath, however unsteady, held tight inside her, until suddenly the tug stopped, and his fingers released her, palm falling down to his lap.  
  
He didn't do it.  
  
The warm ambiance of relief that had washed over her body just seconds earlier immediately froze into rock solid ice, leaving her with nothing but a freezing chill.  
  
Naked emotion left Dylan's face for open surprise-  
  
And she was caught.  
  
A low, cold, angry laughter that went through her in all the wrong ways, so close, as she looked into Anthony's dead eyes and heard the devil.  
  
"You pissed him off, Helen. That freak finally realized what kinda girl ya really are."  
  
Fingers fell away from Anthony's immobile face, Dylan's emotions frozen in a shock that nearly tore her apart - too soon to panic, too broken to care.  
  
He grabbed her from behind, pushing into her ribs and forcing out a painful, horrible cry of pain that she later realized came from her.  
  
She felt every muscle against her, from the grind of his hips to the slide of lips against her ear.  
  
Pinned against Seamus' body, she was helpless to move, when Anthony carefully removed a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping gallantly at the blood on his nose and chin, standing and watching her with eyes of cold, bitter drowning blue.  
  
She had no words as her old boyfriend held her in a mocking imitation of a lover's caress, and what was now going to be regarded as the biggest, most horrible mistake of her life, lit another cigarette, and blew the smoke in her face, making the already stinging eyes water with tears.  
  
And then Anthony, a gentleman to the end, bowed low, motioning to the steel chair, primly offering her his seat.  
  
--  
  
Natalie had always believed every aspect of the job was important - from providing the crucial distraction (and being a belly dancer while she was at it), to dangling from a flying helicopter. She put everything she had into even the smallest of things.  
  
In this business, if one thing went wrong, that meant you were dead.  
  
Today, she couldn't bring herself to care.  
  
Seamus' office was now in complete disarray. The files that had been surprisingly well filed were now splayed all over his desk, dropping over the ugly metal thing and onto the floor.  
  
She couldn't have given a rat's ass.  
  
There was no time to care, and even if the smallest part of Natalie's brain stressed that this was important, all she saw and heard and breathed were Alex and Dylan.  
  
When she found what she was looking for, she dutifully snapped the pictures, quickly and efficiently, laying out the paperwork and checks. With the press of a button, the information had transmitted.  
  
She had promised Dylan she would be watching.  
  
So much of this could go wrong, especially with Dylan-  
  
Dylan was brilliant and smart and beautiful - but Seamus had done everything in his power to break her and he was so very close to succeeding-  
  
Natalie would kill him before that.  
  
And she finally understood Dylan.  
  
Because maybe that was a part of Seamus' plan - to turn them all into him, to make them fester with hate, and make them no better than him - maybe by even thinking it she had let him win.  
  
But she just couldn't care.  
  
It was time to get back to Dylan. She had promised she would be watching.  
  
She was two steps out the door when suddenly an Angel broke into her head.  
  
"Earth to Natalie!"  
  
The invasion brought her short. Her heels clamped to a stop.  
  
"Alex?"  
  
The voice was tired, firm. "I'm on my way. Wanna snag me a VIP pass?"  
  
Natalie's long glance to the Cargo area made her linger.  
  
But she was an Angel. She knew her answer.  
  
"All access, babe. I'm on my way."  
  
Turning on her heel, she moved in the opposite direction.  
  
--  
  
Seamus didn't need a gun or cuffs, like Eric Knox.  
  
He had her by the simple sound of his voice.  
  
Dylan couldn't breathe deeply - her ribs hindered her even that. But her gasping was all she would allow him, even as he made a show of searching her, sucking on her neck as his palms groped around her.  
  
"Ya came inta kill me, didn't ya, Helen? Wouldn'ta had it any other way."  
  
"What makes you think I came for you?" she ground out, gaze straight ahead. He only pushed into her side farther, and this time, as her bones shifted, and her knees nearly went out from under her,  
  
He caught her roughly, using her momentum to shove her into the chair, nearly toppling the flimsy metal folding thing over with the force.  
  
Biting her lip, she stayed silent.  
  
Seamus, grinning with his perfect white teeth in the dark shadows of the empty hull, never seemed more frightening. "Nah," he announced. "Dylan here is an Angel. She don't believe in guns, d'ya Helen?"  
  
She allowed him a smirk back, shifting as the butt of the weapon dug into her spine, pressed by the back of the seat.  
  
And throughout all of this, Anthony continued to circle her - providing an add aura of deja-vu that almost made her sick. The bile rose into her throat, scarring it.  
  
And yet she couldn't move her eyes away from him.  
  
When Seamus' thugs roughly taped her hands together, she made sure it was behind her back.  
  
But her eyes were on Anthony.  
  
Seamus appeared suddenly, looming in her eye-line as his palms stroked possessively up her thighs.  
  
Anthony's eyes caught the movement, before they closed and his attention returned to the little white stick in his hands.  
  
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.  
  
Her eyes already burning, she couldn't keep staring. She shifted her gaze to Seamus, who, ironically, provided even less of a reaction.  
  
There was nothing inside her now.  
  
But he knew how to play her.  
  
"Where are your girls, Helen? Hear ya do a mean strip dance." Paddy O'Malley, holding a bandage to his head, had entered in her distraction. He stood with the other sailors, and he even ventured a snicker at the mention. She ignored him. Seamus checked his bare watch, pretending to glance at the time. "They'll be here any minute, doncha think? No point in rushin' things."  
  
The cold ice melted somewhat. Her mouth, suddenly mobile, twisted into a small, dangerous smirk.  
  
"Honey, I'll kill you very very dead if you try to hurt them - and then I'll Bobbit-tize your ass."  
  
He clucked his tongue, shaking his head. "Ya've moved up in the world, Helen. Gotten yerself a new hairstyle," she jerked away when he ran fingers through her hair. "New look. That kinda talks too trashy for ya." Leaning forward, he regarded her with dancing eyes. "Guess what, Helen? I've moved up too. I don't kill just anyone anymore. I hire people for that."  
  
He thumbed back to the Thin Man.  
  
To Anthony. The assassin with ambiguous morals who had tried to kill Alex and Natalie over and over again, even in her presence.  
  
He was silent and still, smoke wafting around him as he kept an index finger on his chin, staring at her as if she was a painting on display at an art museum.  
  
Distant. Cold. Angry.  
  
He blurred in a haze of moisture, cleared only when a trickle of liquid slid over her skin and down her cheek.  
  
Seamus smiled.  
  
"I saved him from ya, Helen. Saw where he was going, up on that rooftop. When he lived, I decided to show him what kinda girl you really were. He's a tough learner, Helen. Took fucking you for him to realize I was right."  
  
Anthony regarded her with the same cold expression.  
  
"We're not too different, he and I? You fucked us over - makes for a good workin' relationship."  
  
She nearly laughed at the realization.  
  
She had him. Whatever his intentions, whatever his motives, she HAD HIM. For at least half a day Anthony had been hers, body and soul.  
  
And she lost him when she hadn't believed him.  
  
His loyalty had shifted with hatred, just as hers did.  
  
When he had loved her, she had hated him - and this was the result.  
  
The man she had fallen for was going to kill her friends and watch while Seamus killed her.  
  
Dylan grimaced, nodding at the answer to her own question. That was it then.  
  
Subtly, her palms went for her gun.  
  
--  
  
Despite the fact that Alex was now under the assumption that Mary Briggs was certifiably crazy and ridiculously easy to manipulate, getting to San Pedro Harbor had been an interesting ride.  
  
Alex never lost a moment.  
  
Keys cut off the ignition, fingers pushed the car door away, and she was running, as quickly as she could, to the Merkin, large and imposing, holding her two friends within it's walls like a steel trap.  
  
"Nat!" she yelled, taking no time for subtly or espionage as she ran down the planks, pivoting into the dock that held the ship. "I'm here!"  
  
"I'm almost there!" Came the chirp back. "Alex, we have serious problems-"  
  
"You're telling me," Alex responded, moving easily over the thin plank that led up to the ship. "Why is no one guarding the entrance?"  
  
"It's Dylan-"  
  
Alex ceased to hear when red liquid seeped onto her white shoes, staining them red. It kept coming, puddling around her feet, coming straight up from the entrance-  
  
"Nat..." she breathed, stock still. "Did Dylan shoot anyone?"  
  
"WHAT?!"  
  
Guarding the entrance, eyes blank, wide and utterly lifeless, was a guard, slumped less than ten feet from her, a neat hole seeping blood from his forehead.  
  
She heard the whiz too late.  
  
She jerked, but the stabbing bite in her arm was her only reward. She didn't remember crying out, but Natalie's screamed down in her ears as she twisted in the air, whizzing flying past her ear by a hairsbreath.  
  
Landing on the plank with a thump, Alex kept going, desperate to the avoid the flying bullets as she fell over the edge of the plank, down in the direction of the ocean.  
  
--  
  
"ALEX!"  
  
Stuck in the ship, maybe ten feet from the entrance, and cloaked in darkness, Natalie's helpless state didn't assuage her panic.  
  
She broke into a run, almost slipping in a wet puddle on the metal floor.  
  
It saved her life.  
  
Another bullet clinked, exploding into the walls of the ship, mere inches from her head.  
  
She had no choice.  
  
Natalie dove for cover.  
  
end chapter eighteen 


	19. Chapter Nineteen: Smokescreen

Author's Note: Well, it seems that we are definitely coming down to the wire. One chapter left after this one and an epilogue, which I hope to finish by this weekend so I can beta and get this thing out of my hair.  
  
I do truly appreciate the reviews, and I want to thank everyone who faithfully gives me their thoughts after each chapter. You don't know what that means to me.  
  
Onwards -  
  
CHAPTER NINETEEN: smokescreen  
  
In the hollowed out steel drum of her trap, the shots that startled the group came off sounding more like a sonic boom.  
  
Dylan visibly jerked in her seat, head swiveling to the darkened hallway. The panic that had so recently descended into despair, now rose again like bile on her tongue, and her gasp, painful and scared, made Seamus smile.  
  
The bastard actually looked cheery.  
  
"Don't mind that - just takin' care of some rats we found aboard." She could smell his sweat, see the beads on his tanned, darkened skin.  
  
It literally made her sick.  
  
Fingers pushed up at her chin, but she didn't see it. Her eyes closed for relief, hands carefully moved for the weapon-  
  
Why the hell had she put it on her back? Where the fuck was she supposed to point this thing?  
  
Eyes opening, she gave a gasping gulp, slumping against the seat, and shaking her head.  
  
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.  
  
"I was wonderin' how long it would take ya to figure out it was me, Helen," Seamus began, strutting around her like he was some damned Irish peacock.  
  
His words, his meaning, everything that she guessed he wanted her to hear, his big finale exposition moment, meant nothing.  
  
Anthony, free of his gel, was engaged in sliding fingers through his bangs, slicking it back. It only fell forward again.  
  
Her body jolted, suddenly overtaken in a memory of a similar moment, when a feminine hand had done the exact same thing, in a time where everything was uncertain, and there was no one in the world in that alley but her and him.  
  
Seamus' droning lost its meaning when Anthony's deep blue gaze rose to meet hers. The lock of his eyes sent a sudden jolt in her body, a mixture of pleasure and pain, a heave of her heart, and a sob in her chest.  
  
She had hated him. She had hated him, and one hour ago, she would have taken the gun she had hidden for that very purpose and shot him, watching the light go out of the blue eyes with the numb emptiness that had been left in her heart after he had taken everything else.  
  
It was a startling revelation, an epiphany that she never wanted, the feeling of helplessness and anger that pervaded every sense when she knew the reason she had hated him so much.  
  
So much anger. So much emotion twisted on its head in a thin line that had hardened into hate, and melted just as easily.  
  
In the course of all of this, she had fallen in love.  
  
With this sick psycho tweezing bastard.  
  
And she would still kill him.  
  
"-HELEN! Look at me!"  
  
A large, muscular form broke into her gaze and thoughts, as her senses were suddenly overwhelmed with Seamus. The intense glower she received from her psycho beloved suddenly broken, Dylan's melodramatic spell had severed, but her sense of humor, the desire to piss Seamus off, only reignited.  
  
"What? You're not done yet? Can you speed it up, I'm getting a little bored."  
  
She saw it coming. She still wasn't ready for it. The force of the blow mashed her lips against her teeth, drawing blood and a spike of pain, head jerking to the side and chair nearly topping with her momentum.  
  
Eyesight blurred with tears, but she never stopped looking, and in the corner of her vision, she could have sworn Anthony paused.  
  
It was as illusion.  
  
When she had regained her senses from Seamus' blow, he was smoking, cold and distant.  
  
--  
  
Battered fragments of thoughts had taken over any coherency that had previously encamped in Alex's mind. Pure instinct was what saved her, and the result was a palm curled around a large beam of wood just under the dock, twenty feet above the splashing waves.  
  
The white froth of the ocean ripples crashed against the rocks, splattering her with the salty wetness, and roaring into her ears.  
  
Her left arm was burning, dangling helplessly at her side.  
  
A large muscle pounding against her chest and ribcage made it nearly impossible to hear anything.  
  
Now, her teeth digging into her lower lip, mind straining to come to terms with the shock, Alex found herself in a precarious situation.  
  
Focused discipline finally came forward, and she allowed herself to assess her situation, bit by bit, ordeal by ordeal.  
  
Her arm, while bleeding and painful, wasn't shot badly. She had been caught by the bullet biting flesh from her left bicep, passing through. The arm hadn't been rendered useless. No bones were broken, nothing had hit her shoulder. But she couldn't use it to balance her body, it was no help to her now.  
  
Her other hand was stuck in an awkward grip, one that she was already trembling to keep. Splinters tore into her skin, and the splash of the waves caused a vibration on the dock that would force her to lose her hold eventually.  
  
Under normal circumstances, this would have been at most a minor inconvenience. All it really required was a twist of her waist, quick flip - she would have been back on her feet in no time.  
  
But there was a sniper with a clear view of the dock, and chances were she would no sooner touch the ground than her head would be blown off in a rather unpretty spectacle.  
  
The roars made it impossible to hear, and she could do nothing but hang.  
  
She felt vibrations on the wood, different from the waves - footsteps that were slow, careful...  
  
Shit.  
  
Her fingers ached, and when large wave crashed against the rocks, she felt her grip give an inch.  
  
Muscles burned, ached with a slow, methodic torture.  
  
But her grip held, and Alex told herself that she would hang on for as long as it took for the Sniper to leave.  
  
She had to.  
  
--  
  
The shots ricocheted off the walls in a chaotic, dangerous manner.  
  
Natalie gave a shout, launching off the platform and found a railing, curling around it and vaulting to another.  
  
The darkness of the place afforded a crappy shot, and she used it, taking a deep breath as she flipped forward, ignoring the sparks that came from the weapon.  
  
This was really starting to piss her off.  
  
When she landed directly in front of her shooter, he was amply surprised.  
  
"You know, I really don't have time for this."  
  
The shock worked against him. By the time he had actually registered that this would have been a good time to pull the trigger, Natalie's body was already squatting down, her feet swiveling under, arch catching his ankle and pulling forward.  
  
The gun went up in a flurry of sparks, shooting nothing but walls and ceilings.  
  
Grip loosened by the fall, Natalie tore it from his hands easily, tossing it over the railing.  
  
"You people really piss me off."  
  
Pivoting on a heel, Natalie's ax kick landed squarely on his chest with the force of a small truck.  
  
It was sufficient to put him to sleep.  
  
Taking no time to recover, Natalie pressed her hand to her ear, trying to narrow the signal as she frantically called, "Dylan!? ALEX?!"  
  
Behind her was Dylan. In front was Alex.  
  
Natalie, who in all her life had never been driven to swear, found herself muttering a harried, "FUCK!" before she twisted in one direction, stared hard, and with a cry of frustration, went running in the other.  
  
--  
  
The pop of a burst of light, immediately followed by the slow burn of a cigarette, drew her eyes up to Seamus.  
  
He smiled, dangling the newly lighted cigarette just an inch from her face, allowing the smoke to drift it's way into her nostrils.  
  
"How about it? I'm gonna kill ya anyway. What's one last drag?"  
  
Her mouth, bitter with the taste of copper, was not ready to handle the nicotine, and her stomach, already nauseous, gave a vicious jolt at the sight of it.  
  
But something inside her craved it, and knowing he expected her to say no, she merely nodded.  
  
An appreciative smile, reminiscent of a boy she had thought she had known long ago, curled upon the cruel lips, and even Anthony himself watched closely as her lips gently took the stick from his fingertips.  
  
She ignored the jolt that came when his index fingers traced the outline of her mouth, instead closing her eyes, concentrating on the smoke, the nicotine, and the feeling that now flowed through her.  
  
"Kinda like one last romp in the sack..." Eyes opening, Dylan focused on Seamus, on the glisten of arousal in his eyes, the feel of his palms spreading possessively over her shoulders. "What do you say, Helen? I'm up to it if you are."  
  
Drained of her emotion, Dylan found a small part of her instinctively recoil in anger, a darker part still attracted, and the rest of her... oddly resigned.  
  
A smile curled about dangerously pouted lips, arguably Dylan's best feature, or so she was told by maniacs who wanted to screw her. A lazy, bored gaze took in his face, the seriousness of his proposal, the hardness of his chest, and the prominent bulge in the center of his groin, straining from his jeans like a tent.  
  
With a bitter, patronizing chuckle, she answered flatly, "I don't feel like faking."  
  
Smile faltering, Seamus was like a cruel dog, deadly when teased.  
  
"That's right," he breathed. "Forgot that it's not enough for ya. I gotta keep in mind, you like it rough."  
  
Launching up, fingers grabbed locks of red hair, snapping her head back with a vicious pull, suddenly behind her, grinding his erection into her back, holding her roughly and yanking again.  
  
She couldn't suppress the cry of pain.  
  
"That's good for ya, Helen?" he yelled, ringing into her brain, and near to shattering her ear drums. "I can go harder if ya want. Since this is what you like, I'll be happy to oblige." He yanked again, harder. A small burn began to work itself from the base of her neck, and her mouth opened in a gasp, feeling the striking sharpness of another yank - never quite tearing, but always close.  
  
"Hey!" Seamus kept her pinned, forcing her eyes open and on the Thin Man, who continued to watch, the cigarette drifting in and out of his mouth. "This how ya do it?"  
  
She watched, trying to focus on anything but that pain, as Anthony finally flicked the cigarette from his fingertips, strode forward in a hostile, jerky gait.  
  
He ignored her hair, but her eyes closed involuntarily as the tips of his fingers slowly swept across her cheek, over her lips, still stinging with blood, and down between her breasts.  
  
She knew what he was doing.  
  
It came no surprise when her eyes opened, and she found him holding the medallion in his palm.  
  
--  
  
At the tip of the plank hanging just over the beam from with Alex was precariously clinging, a pair of black boots edged just over it.  
  
Splinters dug into her palm, causing an itching pain that made it no easier to hold on. Her hand was sweating, condensed moisture from the beam causing it to slip another inch.  
  
Alex's entire body weight was relying on two fingers.  
  
Biting back the pain, Alex kept herself as silent as she could, as the boots steps forward another inch.  
  
She slipped again.  
  
Alex grunted, struggling, and it gave her away.  
  
Jerking her head up, she winced against the glare of the setting sun, managing to perfectly gleam into the barrel of a gun suddenly pointing directly at her head.  
  
The shots came, Alex jerked, but miraculously, they hit the water, splashing around her.  
  
Shouts and thumps added to the chaos, but Alex couldn't take the time to care, as the suddenly motion caused her fingers to slip, and then there was just one finger, and it wasn't enough.  
  
She slipped, felt with the drop of her stomach the inevitable, and closed her eyes, praying she could have the energy to make it to the rocks, before the sniper had another chance to shoot.  
  
The finger wrenched from the beam.  
  
Warm digits, clamping tight over her wrist, suddenly held her.  
  
Alex gasped, jerking up to find her friend, blonde hair illuminated by the setting sun, holding tightly to her hand.  
  
"Oh," she managed, breathing in the salty sea air. "Hi."  
  
"Hey," Natalie responded, smiling tightly, winded by her weight. "You're late."  
  
"Oh, yeah..." Alex swallowed hard, shrugging at her shot arm. "Traffic was a bitch."  
  
Natalie grinned, and immediately, she pulled up, grabbing the back of Alex's shirt when they managed to get her torso over the plank, back onto the questionably safe dock.  
  
"What happened?" Alex asked, gasping in an attempt to catch her breath.  
  
Pulling on the wounded arm and inspecting the torn flesh, Natalie looked harried and tense. "It was Marlin. I got him by surprise but I couldn't chase him after I saw you. I don't know where he went."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Anytime." Moving the limb carefully, Natalie studied Alex's wince. "Can you move this?"  
  
"Please," Alex retorted. She gave her silk blouse a parting sigh. "If Dylan can run around with two fractured ribs, I can more than certainly operate with a little gunshot wound." She pulled roughly at the sleeve, tearing it off her shoulder, and handing it to Natalie.  
  
Her friend returned the grim smile. "Well, good," she answered quickly, tying off the silk in a makeshift bandage and pushing to her feet. "Because I think she's in trouble, and we better get in there."  
  
"Moving," Alex nodded.  
  
Shifting the bandage, Alex quickly broke into a run, following Natalie into the dark bowels of the ship.  
  
--  
  
The sting that she felt when his fingers closed around the medallion and tugged was nothing. A small welt appeared on her skin, but thanks to Seamus, and his ever so strong grip, it was almost just an inconvenience.  
  
It wasn't the physical pain that was a problem.  
  
Anthony, hawk-eyed demi-god, reverent in his appreciation for touch, slid the metal of the cheap metal trinket over his lips, eyes closing when he gave that sigh.  
  
THAT sigh.  
  
She couldn't react. Seamus released his hold on her, and she barely felt it. The presence of the Thin Man was odd, a new experience that she hadn't felt before - even when she was betrayed, even though her heart had been broken and mended countless times.  
  
"He hates you, Helen," the devil whispered in her ear, lips brushed seductively against her ears, sending a chill through her, that she, muddled with torn emotions, wouldn't bother to place. "I should let him kill ya now." Anthony, with his medallion, circling, bare fisted and completely insane. "It's what he wants. What he asked for. But I've waited too long for this. I'm going to kill ya, Helen, and now may be as good a time as any."  
  
"Funny, how we were thinking the same thing."  
  
Oh, GOD. Dylan's body sagged with relief, crumpling against Seamus at the familiar voice from a friend.  
  
The startled intrusion brought immediate results. Three sailors came out from the shadows, charging at the two Angels that were left standing.  
  
Alex went airborne, tucking into a roll, unfurling at the last second to whip out two feet, swiveling like a top and catching two in the faces. Natalie's way was much subtler. As the third approached, she merely clipped a smile and, with a turn and a flash of footwork, pushed out a leg in a spinning heel kick that buried into his abdomen, knocking the wind out of him, and forcing him to the ground.  
  
"As I was saying - we were thinking the same thing," Natalie reiterated, dusting herself off, one heel ominously close to the fallen man's esophagus.  
  
"But kinda in reverse," Alex added. The Asian woman had a torn shirt, the blue-silk of one sleeve wrapped messily around her left bicep, a darker patch spreading. Dylan had missed something important. Hazel/Green eyes narrowed in concern, but Alex shook her head gently. Dylan understood why Alex seemed to think it was not the time. Ducktaped and held down, there was no way she was going to allow Seamus to see her near emotional break down.  
  
Managing a small, mock glare, she began in the most patronizing tone she could muster, "Took you long enough."  
  
"Traffic," both girls said immediately.  
  
And here they were.  
  
The tell-tale standoff. Evil versus good. Bad Guy versus Good Guy. Bitch versus Bastard.  
  
"I'm really getting sick of this."  
  
Natalie and Alex, beautiful and strong and dusty, never moved toward her. They long ago had ceased throwing her comforting looks. The relieved, angered expressions slowly dissipated into thin mouths and narrowed eyes. Anthony was not in her sight, an observation that forced her to realize he must have been behind her. Two conclusions, formed in a split second in the silence that usually preceded the bad guy's big expositional speech.  
  
There was none.  
  
Instead, something cold, metallic, burned into her left temple, setting a chill that, like an electric current, raced through her entire body, making her completely aware of the fact that Seamus had just pressed a loaded pistol against her head.  
  
"Anthinny." His cold voice vibrated through her, against her back and to her heart, sending it into a panicked stutter. "Kill them."  
  
He made no sound.  
  
A blurry Natalie and Alex immediately crouched into defensive postures, but her eyes were frantically focused on a gleam of silver, a long blade that shone in the darkened room like a star in the night sky.  
  
It entered her field of vision like a too stiff snake, aimed in the direction of her friends. After it came an arm, cloaked in a black fabric that became a torso, a face, a body.  
  
"No," she managed, jerking froward until a hand caught her around her chest, pushing her back, the gun shoving her head further to the side.  
  
"Calm down, Helen," came the voice of her former lover. "I want ya to enjoy the show."  
  
With every step, Anthony moved closer to the Angels.  
  
And suddenly, before she was ready, it happened.  
  
Fists shot in the air and the blade flashed, and Alex and Natalie fought with precision, against a man who knew their weakness, and now exploited it. Alex was shoved back and tripped to the ground. Natalie narrowed missed a swipe with the sword and kicked with her foot, but he caught her, swinging her up like an exaggerated move from a skating championship and sending her on her way.  
  
The fight came closer, as if he was pulling them to her feet in order to let them die at her feet.  
  
And like always, Dylan remained helpless, Seamus overtaking her senses, laughing in her ear and filling her with such hate, she nearly braved the gunshot just to deliver her own.  
  
Anthony came closer, driven back by Alex and Natalie, now near enough to trip if she could manage it. She never got the chance.  
  
Her legs, arching around, and preparing for the thrust, never even got to the front of the chair when suddenly a black clad leg swept under her, kicking through the rungs of the chairs-  
  
She jerked as quickly as she could, kicking up at the gun and falling in the natural momentum, the chair swiveling out of harms way before she landed in a sprawled heap some distance away.  
  
Her head cracked against the ground, snapping back with a splinter of pain that made her dizzy, but even so, she didn't miss the result of the fight that was so expertly orchestrated.  
  
Seamus, gun now out of his hands, stood perfectly still. Painted on his face was a bleak, stunned expression of horror. A long, thin sword had lodged itself firmly in his chest.  
  
The Creepy Thin Assasin wore the patented murderous expression, watching him with eyes of contempt, as if spitting on the man who had once said they were so alike.  
  
Cotton-mouthed, Dylan's own heartbeat staggered in her chest. Footsteps pounded in her direction, and mechanical intuition told her it was Natalie who untied her, wiped at her lips.  
  
"Dylan-"  
  
Finally, she glanced over, and found the wide blue eyes a startled mimic of the wonder of her own.  
  
He was suddenly there, rock hard grip pulling her to her feet, fingers tightly pressed around her biceps, staring at her with an expression that she had seen once before, on a rooftop, months ago.  
  
A softening of features, transforming the cold killer to a beautiful man who had been capable of so much more.  
  
Her lips twisted into a private smile, palm gentle as she stole a moment to caress his face, study the lines of apologetic 'I couldn't do it' regret that creased inside of them.  
  
The soft skin underneath her fingertips was warm and alive, smooth as silk, with exception to the razor stubble that came from his previous unhinging. She studied the contrast, and the gleam of the medallion resting on his chest caught her attention. His eyes never left hers as she closed her fingers around it, but when she began to tug, he stopped her with a squeeze against her body.  
  
Behind her, there was a gasp, but Dylan ignored Natalie's awe, when Anthony himself removed the metal trinket, and gently, gently, dropped it over her head.  
  
When his head dropped to the crook of her shoulder, breathing her in, fingers locked around the hair at the nape of her neck, she held him there, eyes closing in unspoken relief.  
  
Until a shout from Natalie opened her eyes, jerking Anthony away from her when suddenly she remembered, she was in no way alone, or out of this.  
  
Seamus O'Grady, god among men, was still standing, screaming in rage and agony as inch by inch, he pulled on the handle of the sword.  
  
Oh, God.  
  
Horrid amazement overtook any initial relief, as Dylan experienced a man pulling a long saber out of his chest, staggering only once, and curling fingers over the handles of the blade.  
  
When his gaze jerked and locked with hers, she almost took a full step back, one hand on Anthony, the other tangled with Natalie's.  
  
Alex, frazzled and wearing a somber expression, met the three of them, eyes motioning wildly to the entrance, where ten more guards had just decided to make a tardy experience.  
  
Two held guns, both pointing toward Dylan.  
  
"Okay..." Natalie breathed, extracting herself from Dylan and moving forward to stand with Alex. "Plan... B?"  
  
"I don't remember making a Plan B," Dylan said breathlessly.  
  
Alex snorted. "It was tough enough getting through Plan A."  
  
"We had a Plan A?"  
  
"Living through this was Plan A."  
  
Seamus, all muscles and vengeance, had tremendous focus.  
  
His eyes were on Dylan - no one else.  
  
"Kill the rest of 'em," he said blithely. "I'll take care of Romeo and Bitchy-ette."  
  
Rough hands pushed her back, a thin, wiry form moved in front of her, but even that wouldn't protect her from the semi-automatic weapons pointed menacingly in their direction.  
  
Trigger fingers were happy - but with a bang that made Dylan jump and Natalie and Alex jerk their heads, one guard slipped to the floor, brains splattering around him.  
  
When the second guard dropped, Dylan knew where it was coming from.  
  
"You won't kill them."  
  
Marlin boomed over the cargo bay, hidden in the shadows, entrenched around the tips of the ceiling, somewhere along the skinny ledge bathed in darkness.  
  
Tone weary, raspy, weak and desperate, he was, by a large margin, perhaps the most deadly entity in the room.  
  
"It's my job," he continued, wheezing from his place. "My destiny, Seamus! I deserve this - Only I can control something so extraordinary."  
  
"Fucking nut," Seamus growled, spitting up at the darkened area.  
  
Slowly, Dylan fingers pushed over Natalie's palm, pressing beats.  
  
"I deserve it, Seamus!"  
  
Natalie gave her a slow, methodic nod. Her free hand stole to Alex's.  
  
Dylan carefully let go of Anthony, currently engrossed in glaring up at the darkness. With a subtle move, her fingers closed over her gun.  
  
"FUCK YOU!" Seamus bellowed, and fearlessly raised his gun in the direction of the sniper, snapping off his rounds in a burst of reckless anger.  
  
"NOW!"  
  
Bullets began to rain down, deadly messages from heaven - but no one seemed to care, as Natalie's eyes glinted with steel when she barreled into the crowd of guards.  
  
Dylan's boot aimed a well placed kick in the small of Seamus' back, sending him sprawling forward. In a flash he was up, swiping at her with a growl and a blade-  
  
Anthony, a master of his own sword, kicked it up and away from him, returning it to it's rightful owner.  
  
Dylan grinned. "There can be only one."  
  
"Cunt," Seamus growled.  
  
She had no time to take offence to the comment, as Alex's current fighter suddenly dropped with a shot to his shoulder. Twisting under, the brunette used him for cover as the second and third burst into his flesh.  
  
"I'm on him!" she yelled.  
  
"ALEX!"  
  
Moving away for one precious second from Anthony and Seamus, she tossed her weapon to Alex.  
  
The Angel caught it automatically, staring at the thing as if it were poisonous. But the smile that flitted across her face was genuine.  
  
When Seamus dove into Dylan, snapped a fist against her temple, she found the pain almost blinding-  
  
But she saw Alex, struggling with her hurt arm and her gun, making her way up the walls of the ship.  
  
She saw Natalie, face frozen in a yell as she jerked into a sideways split, landing a fist on another sailor's crotch.  
  
And there was Anthony, pulling Seamus off of her and getting a kick across his face for the trouble.  
  
She saw it all, bathed in darkness, and fluorescent lights, wafting in a smokescreen that came from cigarettes and bullets and dust.  
  
The smoke closed around her completely, and Dylan, dazed and blinded, closed her eyes.  
  
End chapter 


	20. Chapter Twenty: When The Lights Go Out

_**author's note:** Okay. I liked. One more chapter after THIS and an epilogue. :-D Hope you're having fun. I should have the rest done by tomorrow afternoon. ;-)___

**CHAPTER TWENTY: when the lights go out**

Deafening sound clattered the steel walls. Bullets ricocheted dangerously, like drums rapping loudly to an odd, chaotic beat. 

Natalie Cooke saw the boom of a spark, twisting in a half splits to avoid the bullet. Landing on her feet, immediately sinking to her knees, her partner cried out with a sickening squelch, falling to the floor as the bullet wound became increasingly visible, stained with red, on his chest. 

Glancing up with a glare, Natalie took only a moment to breathe, before she dove into a roll, meeting another guard with a sweep of her leg, bringing him down. 

The gun came off with a sputter and immediately, she twisted, bringing him up between her legs, shielding herself from the bullets that randomly targeted the people in the room. 

"Having fun?" she asked the sailor, gritting her teeth as she wrapped him between her thighs, and began to squeeze. 

-- 

The burn in her arm was now warmed with exertion, and Alex Munday paid no attention to the pain as she continued to make her way up the rungs. 

Marlin continued his shots, bringing down sailors and missing every other minute – but his shots were getting closer, and Alex couldn't afford to wait. 

The gun fumbled in her palm, and after a moment's grimace, Alex shoved it into her pants, nestling it snugly against the small of her back. 

There was no question as to whether or not she could use it. Marlin was intent on killing her and her friends. Alex had killed before. 

She was just fine with doing it again. 

No matter how ordinary the person was. 

-- 

A high-pitched scream drove her suddenly away from the darkness. 

Dylan, plastered against the concrete, felt the cold of it seep against her back, filling her with an odd chill that kept her curiously glued to it. 

Above her, hidden in shadows, a large spark of a burst came at her- 

"FUCK!" 

Pushing with her palm hard at the floor, she fell on her side, just as the ping of the bullet scattered shards of concrete, bits of it snapping her on the back like a whip. 

"Owww." 

Survival instincts had saved her life, but Dylan's body was severely taking away from the equation. Ribs throbbed, head pounded, lungs choked with dust, the rebel Angel felt nauseous and dizzy, room twisting around her in a carousal kind of way, keeping her mind fuzzy and her vision blurred. 

The scream came again, and this time Dylan saw it, senses sharpening when a flash of a bare-chested body came at her. 

"DYLAN!" 

The warning came a second late, but Dylan was already down, ribs creaking in protest, leg splayed out like a beam of wood that the barreling Seamus tripped over, pounding into the ground, and coming up with a face full of blood. 

Strong hands bruised her shoulders as she was pulled up, enveloped in a heady scent of cigarettes and sweat. Anthony pushed her behind him, sword gleaming as he continued to face her old lover, eyes narrowed in a murderous scowl. 

Seamus wiped at the blood with a dirty palm, streaking brown dirt through the red stains. 

He studied it with a smile. "There's gonna be more of this on you than there will be on me, Helen," he promised cheerfully. "And I'll lick it off ya." 

A kick at his feet brought a shard of concrete right at her, and once again, a foreign grip twisted her body, and kept her out of its way. 

"Freak bastard," Seamus taunted. "That girl's gonna kill ya." 

And he came at them, a demon with blood running down him, making the skin slippery, impossible to get a hold of. 

Seamus didn't care about the sword, or about the odds. He cared only to kill – and the only way to beat him was to be exactly the same. 

Dylan's hand now locked in Anthony's, and she used it to vault off the floor, swing with momentum to bring her boots squarely into Seamus' face. 

He reeled back – but it wasn't enough. 

It would never be enough. 

-- 

He was quieter now – shots sporadic but well-aimed. So far every shot had found its target. 

Thank God her friends had quick reflexes. 

It was stifling hot up here. No breeze, moist, hot air clinging to her skin, pasting her clothes to her body and making her gasp to breathe. 

Okay. Okay... 

Mouth opening to gulp in a mouthful of hot, stale breath, she carefully, quietly, unclipped the gun from her back. 

Pressing back into the shadows, she closed her eyes, biting her lips as she cocked it. 

The click went out loud and harsh, and suddenly, the ping around her made her bring her knees down, rump hitting the railing. 

"I know you're up here!" she heard, shrill and desperate in tone. "I'll get you!" 

Black strands stuck to her forehead, covering her eyes. With a too harsh gesture that was going leave a welt across her skin, she scraped it away with her nails, straining to hear the voice. 

"Yeah..." She breathed her answer, handling the weapon easily, one step at a time into the darkness, toward the sound of the killer. "You're welcome to try, buddy." 

-- 

The shots suddenly stopped coming down, but Natalie had nothing less to worry about. 

There were five left, but five were enough. 

One had a chain, another had a pipe – the third had a gun. 

He leveled his shot, as the third threw the chain. 

She took the brunt of the metal, letting it curl around her wrist before she yanked, throwing him off balance and landing him in front of her just as the man pulled the trigger. 

His grip loosened as he crumpled to the floor, and she used the momentum to curl the chain over the pipe as he struck, forcing it to fly from his grip, twisting it's flight to land into the gun bearer's face, as the gun shot in the air two inches too high. 

She felt the jar of the wind against her as the bullet flew past. 

Shit. That was close. Too close. 

-- 

The cargo cage was only a few feet away. The steel bars held money, gold, pirate's treasure for a sailor of the twenty-first century. 

He fought for her. 

It was almost surreal, to consider the idea that this man, THIS assassin, for something simple as love for her, now bled and bruised, fist to fist against the man who had also loved her, also hated her. 

Dylan never could admit to normalcy. 

Anthony was more than a match for Seamus. Where the Irish gangster was muscle bound and heavy, he was wiry and strong. 

The two-demi gods fought for the right to claim her, but no Guinevere, Dylan pitched in plenty herself, using Anthony's grips, Anthony's moves, to facilitate her own handicapped fight moves. 

Without Anthony, she knew that Seamus would have her. She was grateful for it. 

Then she became utterly terrified. 

Anthony had a weakness that Seamus had long ago hardened into obsession. 

When Seamus swept down on her, tangled fingers into her hair and yanked her off her feet, it through Anthony off his own guard, and into rage for her safety. 

It was a deadly mistake. 

Dylan screamed, burning fire in on her scalp forcing anything else out of her mind, the vicious abuse on her follicles suddenly overwhelming. 

Another familiar high pitched scream came her way, but she could nothing, as Seamus breathed something hard and rough and unintelligible in her ear and sent her on her way, hair snapping in two as she pitched forward into the cage, crashing into a cabinet. 

The metal connected with her forward, slamming a blinding pain into her senses, before her vision blurred with tears, and she crumpled on the floor, hands instinctively grappling for a firm hold on the floor as she saw a bleary version of the Thin Man thrown back. 

Something started screeching, distinct rusted metal, and even as her mind begged for the release of passing out, she couldn't do it. 

Because she was locked in the cage with Seamus. 

-- 

There was a glimmer, just a glimmer, of movement. 

Alex swallowed hard, taking a ragged breath before she held out the gun, tight, careful, relaxed grip. 

Charlie said guns weren't necessary. There was always another way. 

But she pulled the trigger, felt the burn of muzzle radiating to her face when it ricocheted off metal and he returned fire, spitting at his rounds and making her roll forward, nearly pitching off the thin railway. 

"I'll get you!" 

Right. 

Alex's heart pounded, her body stank with sweat, and she was hardly in her element, dangling from the ceiling of a mad man's boat. 

Still, she felt the cool anger, the cruel certainty. 

She would beat him. 

There wasn't another option. 

"You know what?" she began, her voice a loud yell, carrying across the ceiling the complete contempt. "Then fucking do it. Come at me. You're so extraordinary? Prove it. Because all I see it an ordinary, freaked, coward." 

The bullets came faster, harder, and she slipped from the railing, a gross mimic of her adventures on the plank. 

But she wasn't the victim here. 

With a grimace, she twisted, pulled up the gun, and setting her sights, shot once. 

She heard the yelp, the clatter of metal on the metal, and the sound of boots pounding. 

"Fine," she managed, one leg over the railing, pulling herself up with the good arm, now back on her feet. "I'll be Tom, YOU be Jerry." 

Always careful, always focused, Alex kept going. 

-- 

"DYLAN!" 

Natalie's distracted scream resulted in a sailor getting the chance to land a jarring kick in her face. The steel-toed boot cracked across her chin like a whip, and the floor spun, shifting up to meet her back in a hard fall that stole her breath, stunned her into stillness for a horrible second. 

The eyes of the sailor above her glittered in triumph. Natalie's legs scissored, fully prepared to take him down, when suddenly the orbs lolled, and an audible snap slumped the body down, revealing a Creepy Thin Man behind him. 

Always a surprise with the Creepy Thin Man. 

Natalie took a gulping breath, hesitating only a second before she took his outstretched hand, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. 

"Thanks," she said breathlessly. 

He never took the time to answer. A jerk back to Dylan's predicament, and he was gone, running another sailor through with his sword, and stepping over him. 

Natalie would have followed – had the last remaining sailor not come at her with a fishing spear. 

-- 

Blood smeared over the metal where he had hidden. 

Alex glanced down, eyes following the black splotches barely visible in the pitch black over the one fluorescent bulb that lit the cargo bay below. 

Pure logic told her that she could not concentrate on what was happening below her. The Angels were fighting for their lives, but up here, Alex was watching over all of them. 

It meant bringing down a killer who had thus far proven to be proficient with close range shots, close range stabs, and the ability to melt into obscurity. 

She was in more danger than she ever was. 

Keeping her gun trained in front of her, Alex kept moving, watching her footing on her precarious perch, straining to listen for her opponent in the darkness. 

For a moment, she could have sworn she heard sirens. 

A cry from Natalie, screaming for Dylan, brought her gaze below her, where a Thin Man was running for a cage, and there was a red-head with a wild demon of a man painted red. 

"Oh, God," she whispered. 

The press of something cold against her cheek forced her to freeze, eyes close in silence frustration as she heard a soft, meek, "You're so beautiful" before the shot rang out. 

--   


It was a cage fight. 

Dylan could barely keep her feet on the ground as he came after her – hole in his stomach, painted with dirt and sweat and blood. 

It dripped on her jeans, stained her shirt, soaked into her skin – the fighting she did that she wasn't sure was foreplay to him or an attempt at murder. 

The cage rattled as she slammed into it, chain links buoying her body for him to slam a fist into her ribs. 

"You like that, Helen?" he breathed into her face. "It's a little bit of a cheat there, with that vest your wearin'. Maybe I should take it off?" 

Fingers groped for her shirt. 

Dylan stifled the cry, hand splaying about the cabinet nearing, hand closing over an ivory elephant tusk. 

With a swing, she cracked him on the head, sending him back and allowing herself only a second for the pain. 

Screams rattled the cage, and Dylan lost a precious moment to find Anthony furious on the other side, hand reaching for the button that would lift the door and get her out of this prison. 

It began to screech again, up, and up, paving the way to her salvation. 

And then a boom and sparks blew a wave of heat beside her, and she screamed, pushing into Seamus, bringing him down with her. 

It was too late. 

Anthony was down, the door was only a foot up, and Seamus held the gun he had acquired, laughing as she struggled against him, first cracking against his chin as the tears of anger ran down her face. 

"You're alone, Helen," he said, scrambling against her grip, pushing her off of him with a powerful slap on her cheek. "What will you do?" 

"Kill you, you fuck," she answered, as he swept her leg, arched his hips, and suddenly was the one on top, struggling to hold her, while she remained pinned – two fractured ribs preventing her from using the same move on him. 

"You hate me yet, Helen?" 

She nearly spat in his face, but apparently the reaction wasn't clear enough, because Seamus, her old lover, the man who had once been inside her nearly five times in two hours, pressed lips over hers, cracking teeth against teeth, before he let her arch again, and shoved her over. 

She was now in the most dangerous position to ever be in, a rear submission. 

She felt him hard against her, thrusting with his hips as she struggled against the weight. 

His arms held her, forcing her left hand to curl around a gun, palming her with brute strength, and pointing it to Anthony's still body, head visible under the gap of the half open door and the floor. 

"Let's kill him, Helen." 

She whimpered, heart stuttering into rapid jolts when she felt his finger over hers, felt the trigger give. 

-- 

He was nothing but an inconvenience. 

With a quick hop, she moved over his attempt at a sweep, caught the spear when he launched it at her, and then used the same move that he had botched on her, to bring him to his back. 

A quick ax kick stomped him out of the conscious, and then Natalie could concentrate on what was happening on the other side of the room. 

Above her, there was a shot, in front of her that was about to be one. 

"DYLAN!" she screamed. "NO!" 

-- 

Alex felt the blood smear on her hands. 

She swallowed hard, taking a step back to glance at it, almost numb with what had just happened. The inside of her head felt as if she had been inside of a gonging bell. 

Marlin's index finger was gone, blasted by Alex's gun. 

The blank look of horror on his face was not unexpected, but certainly not welcome. Alex brought the gun down, features passive as she placed a foot behind her, pivoting back as he looked at the blood spurting where the finger used to be, gun long ago dumped to the floor. 

His eyes lolled to hers in a questioning startled gaze. 

"You see, Marlin," she whispered, dropping the gun below them, letting it fall to the ground with a vicious clink. "When it comes down to it – you're only when you're dead. And I... didn't feel like being ordinary just yet." She smiled coldly. "So it's your turn." 

He rushed her, face contorted in a murderous scowl. 

All it took was a quick step to the side, and Marlin, a lost little man who was desperate in his search for the extraordinary, died in the most extraordinary way; toppling over the rungs, and flying through the air, flailing with his bloody stump. 

Alex was sweaty, bloody, tired, and had a headache. 

She had no satisfaction when she saw him land with the sound of a crushed watermelon, as if he was beaten by Gallagher himself, a foot away from a blonde friend with wild, panicked eyes. 

Natalie registered the dead sniper for only a second, before she looked up into the darkness. 

"ALEX! GET DOWN HERE." 

Alex finally took the moment to look, saw Dylan, saw Seamus, and saw Anthony. 

"Oh, GOD," she whispered, and nearly lost her footing in her rush to get down. 

-- 

He started to move. 

Little by little, inch by inch. 

Seamus' heavy weight was suffocating, as every part of him pressed down on every part of her, overwhelming her mind, her senses, her very being. 

The sights of the gun landed inadvertently in her target. She saw the point of the gun, Anthony's head. 

NO. 

NO. 

"Oh, fuck," she whispered, slipping on sweat as he pushed at her finger, yet another centimeter. "This is gonna hurt like hell." 

And then she twisted, moving her hips, and bucking so suddenly, it gave her six inches of space for about two seconds. Ribs screamed, and her body almost collapsed, but she ignored it, bringing up a boot and wedging it between them, as the gun went off in a burst of sparks that were nowhere near Anthony's dark head. 

Seamus slammed her head against the cement, but she kept moving, pushing with her boot and screaming in reaction to her own pain. 

Her left leg came up immediately, catching him in a vicious kick to his temple, and she was free. 

Seamus was down for only a second, but it was enough. 

The gun was now at his head, and Dylan, frozen in an angry glare, kept her finger on the trigger. 

He knew better than to move. One tough sole of a boot was pressing down at his esophagus, the other too far away to grab hold of. 

And Dylan had the gun. 

Behind her, there was the sound of metal screeching, indicating freedom from the trap, but she no longer cared. 

She knew there must have been rage inside of her. Anger. Fear. Love. Hate. 

All she felt was numb precision. 

"You want to kill me, Helen?" Seamus whispered, staring at her with dark, soulless eyes. "Do it, then." 

"I want you to know something," she said softly, husky and edgy. "You won, Seamus. You succeeded. I do hate you." He kept looking, and the small smile on her face never seemed more dangerous. "I never knew the meaning of the word until you. I know I'm no better than you, and you went to jail and you hated me, and I finally understand why." The gun cocked, and she pressed it close to his temple, ignoring the way his eyes closed, the way his breath sucked in. "And I don't care." 

"Dylan, don't!" 

"Stop, Natalie," she yelled behind her, never looking, eyes for no one but Seamus. "I'm not like you. As long as he's alive he'll come after us. I'm him. And there can be only one-" 

Seamus made the mistake of moving. 

She pivoted and shot a hole in his leg, in his hand, and then a flash of a second, the gun was back at his head, boot choking him at his throat as she stepped down, hard. 

Seamus grit his head, grimacing in a yowl as he clutched his hand with his free palm, now full of holes, and still alive. 

"Congratulations, Seamus," Dylan whispered. "I'm Helen. I'm alive. I hate you. And you're dead." 

She began to squeeze the trigger. 

Fingers caught hold of her sleeve, pulling her arm and suddenly yanking it to the side, as the books on the table above Seamus exploded in a flurry of dust and paper. 

Anthony's face was passive, all angles and cold blue eyes. 

His cheek was stained with blood, and there was a splotch of blood on his arm, but he was still Anthony, staring at her with his hands on her shoulders, meaning always so clear despite his long self-imposed silence. 

It was in his eyes, in the quick shake of his head. 

The warmth of his hands, the irony of the fact that in this cage, one man loved her and tried to kill her, and ended up hating her and one came from the other way around, rushed in her with a startled sweep of breath. 

This wasn't who Anthony knew. 

Outside the cage, Natalie watched with a desperate, horrified gaze. Dylan knew if she could see Alex, she would see the same thing. 

Her hand stole to cover his, tangling her fingers with a desperate squeeze, before she eased her foot off of Seamus' neck, finally glancing down at this man. This past. 

"No," she said finally. "I'm not going to do it. I can't be you, Seamus. Not when there's so many people out there who desperately need me to be Dylan Sanders." 

The gun fell to the floor with a clatter. 

The doors pounded open, and suddenly guns flooded the cargo bay as uniformed officers began to pound in from the hallways. 

It didn't stop Anthony from swiftly turning from Dylan, eyes set on Seamus. 

There was nothing Dylan could do when her new lover raised his sword, and brought it down on the neck of her old lover. 

Seamus' head rolled from his body, as cops babbled and Mary Briggs entered just in time to see what had just occurred. 

Anthony remained unapologetic, staring at Dylan and making no excuses. 

It had to be done. 

He just hadn't wanted her to be the one do to it. 

"POLICE FREEZE!" 

Guns pointed directly at Anthony's heart. 

-- 

From her view, she could see everything, played out like a masterpiece theatre. 

She had seen Anthony's murder of Seamus. 

She had seen Mary witness it. 

She saw the cops and she saw the big fluorescent light, the wire attached to it, running all the way from the ceiling to the walls. 

Without another thought, Alex vaulted off the railing with a yell, closing fingers around the wire that strung above, pulling down with the momentum of her body. 

Flames erupted behind her in an eruption of sparks. 

And the lights went out. 

-- 

_end chapter_   
__


	21. Chapter TwentyOne: Guardian Angels

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: guardian angels**

Mary Briggs hated the dark.

The sparks that erupted as a dark Angel fell from heaven left behind nothing but pitch black.

Around her, cops scuffled, and some even cried out. She stood her ground, hand clutched around the handle of her gun, not daring to move when she stared straight ahead into the nothingness that had overtaken the cargo bay.

Blindly reaching for the cotton cuff of a uniformed officer nearest her, Mary pulled him closer. "Turn on the flashlight you have in your belt, you moron. EVERYONE. FLASH LIGHTS!"

One by one, little beams of light began to burst into the room.

Snatching one, Mary aimed it carefully at the cage.

A red-head blinked away at the glow. Beside her, there was nothing.

Apparently, one of the bastard officers she had been given knew what he was doing, because a metal hiss spread over them, and suddenly, flickering lamps chased away the shadows, leaving behind a cargo bay infiltrated by the police, and three Angels standing together.

The glares she received were bordering on hatred, but they composed themselves well. Mary would have expected nothing less. Natalie seemed largely unscathed, blond hair unruly, but sexy nonetheless. Beside her, Alex Munday held a blood-stained palm to her left arm, shirt torn at the sleeves. Dylan Sanders had taken the brunt of that attack. The red-head had painted black and red streaks across her face, blood clotting a dark splotch on her lower lip and chin.

All three very much alive.

And there was no Anthony in sight.

Shit.

"Good evening," she managed, voice formally polite, forced carelessness in her tone as she snatched off the flashlight, tossing it to a pair of waiting hands and coming forward.

"Hey, Mary," Alex chirped. "You're late." Seemingly oblivious to the guns that were now leveled on them, she seemed perfectly at ease as an officer snapped cuffs on her wrists.

"Traffic," she responded.

"You touch her again, I'll have you arrested," Natalie said sweetly, eyes turning cold on the officer who held Alex. "She's a licensed Private Investigator who was only doing her job."

Mary grinned, shaking her head as she waved the gun around her. "This is your job?"

"It's full service," Dylan explained.

It was a disaster area.

The trembling that made her sweat was almost impossible to hide, and without the smug 'aha' moment she had been anticipating, it left her in an almost impossible situation.

She had expected dead bodies when she had entered.

She had expected no survivors.

Now she had a murderer on the loose, a sniper down, an Irish gangster beheaded, and three witnesses who happened to be private investigators.

Mary took in a short breath.

Okay...

Yes... but they were also under arrest.

"You going to give up your friend, or are you just all planning on going to jail for aiding and abetting?"

"Hey, Mary, I just tripped," Alex said innocently. Glancing back at the officer who still held her, she handed him the handcuffs, miraculously free. Mary blinked. No one had given her the key. "I mean, I was all the way up there, and then I just... tripped and had to grab something – it wasn't my fault the lights went out."

The smiles that floated on her two friends gave her an incredible urge to point her gun and pop off three shots.

Thank God for self control. Stuffing the gun into her holster, she managed a carefree smile, matching the girls' expression with a sarcastic one of her own.

"Oh, really. What about tampering with evidence? Resisting arrest? Assaulting an officer? Reckless driving? Setting your fucking dog on me? Those were accidents too?"

"No," Alex answered sweetly. "Those were just for fun."

Mary nodded back, smile never faltering. "Well I hope it was worth it. Because I know a couple really mean bitches back in the precinct jail who are gonna love playing with that ass."

"No one's going to jail."

The hardened tone took her by surprise. It came from the blonde – who of all three, seemed always the sweetest, the meekest. There was no sweetness now. The gentle expression Mary had seen before now had been replaced with pure steel, eyes glinting at her with distain.

It was enough to make the smile falter, instinct that told her somehow, the game had changed. Around her, officers talked in their walkie-talkies, moved around her, did what they were trained to do.

But a few were listening. It was because of them she kept her smile frozen.

"Excuse me?"

"You're too easy to read, Mary," Dylan said.

"Oh, Dylan. I didn't recognize you with your clothes on."

"It was simple wasn't it?" she continued – never missing a beat despite Mary's dry observation. "You had it all planned out. Seamus, Marlin, Anthony, us – send us all in here. Every mistake you ever made, tossed in a steel trap. You figured it would only be a matter of time before we killed each other."

"And of course, then you'd just come in here with your warrant and your gun, just in time to find all the dead bodies," Alex added. "The celebrity sniper and an Irish mob boss, a hired assassin – it was genius. Save yourself the bullets. Make yourself a hero."

"You were just weren't counting on us living through it," Natalie finished, hands on her hips, eyes a cold glare as she noted, "Which proves you don't really know us very well."

Mary knew that eventually, her luck would run out. She had expected it, waited for it. For the longest time, she had fucked the system and she knew eventually it would fuck her.

She could deal with it.

But not from them. Not these three.

But officers glanced at her, curiosity making them turn into stares, longer, searching looks as guns lowered, whispers began.

She tried to speak, but her throat choked, and she had to swallow before she could sound out anything.

"If you think I'm going to let you-"

"You can still come out the hero, Mary," Dylan said crisply.

"Get out of here," she snapped at the cops. "NOW!"

"Mary-"

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE," she snapped. "I'll deal with them-"

"Our orders-"

"I don't CARE!"

The officer no longer held any reverence for her. It shone in his eyes, in his defiant glare. "Five minutes," he said finally, before he motioned to his partner, and they walked backwards, cuffs in pockets.

"Talk," Mary said curtly, broken, hesitant.

"Let Anthony leave. Give him a chance to run. Tell them you saw nothing. You get the credit. You get the Celebrity Sniper and you get the Irish Mob – we'll get out of here and say nothing about it." Alex's voice was flat.

"You come out the hero, the genius. And if you don't like it, you don't have much choice."

"We got some nice evidence that good ole' Nat managed to snap from a certain office," Dylan said, patting her friend helpfully.

"Aren't these little cell phones with the cameras in them the coolest?" Natalie said, mock enthusiasm in her tone as she toyed with the cell phone she now held out. "I mean, thank God for Catherine Zeta Jones and those commercials or I never would have known about them! You can like, email pictures, instantly!"

"Hmmm..." Alex mused. "Boy, you know – if someone, got emailed a certain pictures about... oh, ten minutes ago and sent that over to the justice office if they didn't hear from us in a few minutes then – Mary's friends could help tighten that ass!"

Blackmail. Who knew?

"So... what? You make me a deal? You can send me to jail – no one in here can identify him but me. They've got nothing on you – why not just take me?" They were playing a game – she had to know what it was.

"Are you kidding?" Alex asked, disbelief on her face. "I'm still waiting to kick your ass. I can't do it unless you're out here. At least this way, I'll get the chance."

"I'll go halvsies," Natalie offered.

But Dylan, the red-head who Mary had been the closest to actually shooting, came forward, short and beaten, and still frightening as hell. Mary, to her credit, stood her ground. She came closer, closer, until her breath was on Mary's lips, and her eyes sparkled with glinted anger.

"It's their idea," she said simply. "I'd rather just shoot you. But I don't do that."

"Get away from me," Mary said quietly.

Dylan smiled, and did so, stepping back behind the others.

It was an awkward moment, the change in power that told Mary she wasn't in charge anymore. She had lost to three girls who had played her right into their hands.

Marlin was right.

She was never extraordinary.

"So, what now?" she asked the blonde. "You're free to go – but I imagine you have more requests, now that you have me so neatly in your favor."

"We'll discuss the charges against Alex," Natalie agreed. "But right now, we're just going to kill time."

"Pardon?" Mary replied. Suddenly she blinked, looking around the crowded bay to realize that they were now missing one Angel. "Where's the red-head?"

"Or more importantly," Alex clipped with a smirk, "Where's your lighter?"

The question didn't make sense, until Mary reached self-consciously into her pocket and found it gone.

--

The boatyard was swarming with cop cars, lights blinking over the ships, and officers, some bored, some waiting, others speaking quietly.

The shadows beyond the docks were deserted.

Dylan felt the chill of the ocean air, shrieks of seagulls as the cool breeze hit her sweaty skin filled her senses, and for a moment, just a sliver of a second, this all felt surreal.

It could have been another evening at the beach, not the end of the longest week of her life.

She could almost convince herself it hadn't happened.

But the darkness beckoned, and when she felt something, in that sixth sense that Charlie insisted they develop for survival, she knew he would be there.

Black shoes gleamed when he stepped into the flickering lights of the lamppost above them. Cold blue eyes, steel dark gaze. He looked ready to kill her, just like every other time she had seen him.

On more than one occasion, he had.

Standing before her was a killer. A murderer with an unfeeling heart and ambiguous morals, loyalties that shifted with every fleeting emotion-

A total bastard.

But a bastard in love.

The ability to breathe suddenly decided to abandon her, and left struggling with gasps, Dylan let her frustration mount, emotions surging to the surface-

With a curled first, she caught him across the chin in a full on right hook, not holding anything back.

"YOU son of a bitch!" she managed. Anthony raised a palm to his chin, rubbing ruefully as he stared at her passively. "You ever do that again, and I'll kill you. I mean it. You broke my heart, Anthony, and I don't... I can't... I won't..." And it was too blurry to see. Tears stung her eyes, and when the first wet drop landed over her cheek, she lost the energy to her anger.

In the next instant she was in his arms, mouth covering his in a desperate embrace, lost in his lips, his heat, his entire essence that was destined to bring her alive and kill her the next instant, over and over in a vicious cycle that would remain her absolution.

The tears ran freely, against her will, staining his face with her scent, and curving into their joined mouths, until she tasted salt and bittersweet sadness.

He held her close, never gentle, never caring about her ribs, and never the man she expected to love. He was crazy and insane, and murderous, and yet-

"You have to go," she managed, mumbling words against his mouth when he breathed her in, eyes closed and giving her THAT sigh, rubbing locks of hair between his fingers.

Eyes opened, and inches away, she felt the heat of his breath, the intensity of his gaze.

"Mary's an idiot – she can't be trusted. There were too many witnesses. They'll come after you..."

She wasn't telling him anything he didn't already know. In every instance they had fought with him or for him, he had always known more than them. He had nearly beaten them at every game, and he could have beaten her in this one.

Eyes widened in remembrance, a thought sinking into Dylan's heart that needed to be voiced.

"You know I hated you," she managed. He continued to watch her, fingers locked on her hair, lips moving over her eyes, her lips, her skin with obsessive precision that made her ache. "I hated you. For a few hours." He paused, and she managed a sad smile. "It was then I realized I loved you." It was an admission that should have meant the very world. But she gathered he already knew. Just like always. "It was scary, you know? How much I felt both sides – love and hate, and – the DEPTH..." He stared at her passively, never changing his expression, never moving his fingers. "I guess, you felt a little bit of the same thing. I realize that. It's the closest I ever came to really understanding you."

He never said a word. He didn't have to. When his lips twitched, it was enough expression, enough to make her heart beat faster, breath quicken.

Stepping back, she pulled out of his arms, glancing back at the police and the sirens only a hundred feet away, oblivious to their love scene in the shadows. "I got something for you." From her pocket, she removed a lighter, etched with an American flag. His blue eyes zeroed in on it, like a hawk staring at a rabbit bouncing his way across the ground, pure predator with every motion. Glancing up, his gaze was questioning. "You smoke," she said finally, smile edging on her lips. "Like, a LOT. And with this – you'll have to remember me every time you pull out a cigarette. And considering you always HAVE ONE, you'll be thinking about me a lot."

He stared down at it, watching with narrow focus as she pushed it into his front pocket, snug against his chest.

He had to go. She knew he did.

But there was one last thing she had to do.

Intertwining her fingers between elegant, slender digits, her gaze never left his as she gently placed them at her nape, readying for the pull.

It never came.

He only continued to look at her, before a low shake of her head made her mouth open in bewilderment.

Anthony lips covered hers, a dark, simple kiss, before he stepped back, mouth opened, and suddenly took her by surprise with a sentence that stung her heart.

He spoke with a stutter, dry and raspy, but the meaning so clear as he tried.

"Lo-lo-love me... whe-when I-I'm g-g-g-g-g-"

"Gone," she managed for him, eyes glistening with moisture, palms caressing his face as he nodded.

And just like that, he was gone.

Dylan was alone in the alley, heart pounding, and tears slipping, when two pairs of arms slipped around her, one over her shoulders, and the other about her waist.

Natalie gave her a short, quick squeeze, staring into the darkness with a small, hopeful smile.

"You'll see him again. I mean, it's not we can ever really get rid of him. I mean – we've tried."

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "It's like; he's your own, personal, freaky thin Guardian Angel."

Dylan, broken and yearning, found her heart jump with laughter, eyes crinkling against her tears as she smiled.

"Yeah," she said finally, turning her head to glance at both her friends, her partners, her sisters, her family.

Natalie was gentle as she brushed a bang off her forehead. "You okay?"

Dylan took a breath. Her lip stung, her ribs ached. She was dirty, sweaty, tired, and had just seen her ex-boyfriend get his head chopped off by a guy who was now on the run.

But Alex and Natalie were beside her, for better or for worse.

Hands slipped about their waists, and holding them closer, she grinned.

"I'm perfect. Can we get out of here?"

"Oh, God, I thought you'd never ask."

"I really – SO want a shower."

Someone limped, someone tripped, and someone yelped in pain.

But they were all standing.

And they were all going home.

--

All things considered – they had gotten through this almost a little too easily.

WAY TOO EASILY.

Sitting contritely beside each other on the big, comfy couch, Bosley thought the Angels looked more like Catholic schoolgirls being disciplined for talking dirty in school than women who had run out on their boss and saved the world doing it.

"I want you girls to understand the seriousness of what you've done," Charlie's voice continued to speak sternly. The speakerbox itself now looked imposing and intimidating, and all three women nodded immediately, hands in their laps. "You could have been killed."

"That's right!" Bosley interrupted, nodding like a disgruntled rooster.

"We do, Charlie," Natalie said, nodding sagely. "And Bosley. It was impulsive-"

"And stupid!" Bosley barked.

"Rash," Dylan agreed.

"And stupid!" he said again.

"And a little too emotional," Alex breathed, hand locked with Dylan's.

"And stupid!"

"And amazing," Charlie said finally.

"And stu- say what?!" Eyes widening with surprise, Bosley turned to stutter at the speaker-box. "Charlie!"

"With absolutely no help from me, or Bosley, the three of you managed to pull together, get yourselves through it, work from your mistakes, and get the bad guy."

"Well," Dylan slumped back on the couch, sighing heavily. "Not all the bad guys."

"We'll get Mary," Alex said quickly.

"There's no need," Charlie intoned. "People like that eventually destroy themselves."

"Charlie! There better be some butt-whoopin'!" Bosley sputtered. "After the shit these girls put me through-"

"Actually, Charlie," Natalie said, uncrossing her legs and flashing a beautiful, dazzling smile that always managed to tongue-tie Bosley. "You're giving us a little too much credit."

"I am?"

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "We didn't do it without help."

"That's right," Dylan said, smile creasing across her features as her hazel eyes floated in Bosley's direction. "Bosley helped."

"I... I did?" he began, mouth flapping open, and then shutting in flabbergasted bewilderment.

"He's the one that lured Mary to the ship. We couldn't have done it without him." Natalie pushed off the couch, curling a soft palm around his forearm and bringing him to the couch, where suddenly he had three girls, smelling damned good, rubbing into his shoulders and hands.

"Congratulations, Bosley," Charlie said warmly. "You outdid yourself yet again."

"UH... I ..." Oh, Lord. What the hell. With a Cheshire grin, he relaxed, wrapping an arm around his girls. "I told you they was smart!"

"And now, I'd like to direct your attention to the screen, Angels."

"Another case?" Dylan asked, moving her palm to her ribs in a grimace.

"Not quite."

Turning dutifully, Bosley pushed the remote, finding the channel preset to CNN, where a familiar looking person was waving off cameras, and blubbering a 'no comment' every second as she shouldered her way through the crowd of the courthouse.

Natalie's jaw dropped. "Is that MARY?"

"Briggs is currently under court-martial for a number of illegal acts, which include smuggling, taking bribes, and blackmail. If convicted, the LAPD Sergeant could receive up to four years in jail-"

"Oh my God!" Alex breathed.

"Okay," Dylan said flatly, looking between the girls. "Who snitched?"

"Not me!" Alex said, waving Dylan away. "Natalie?!"

"Uh-uh!"

When they all glanced at Bosley, he looked wide-eyed. "Mary was dirty?!"

"Angels, like I said before, people like Mary will always end up destroying themselves."

There was something about Charlie's voice that was slightly off, as if the person behind it was smirking.

Bosley blinked. Beside him, Natalie gasped, squeezing his hand as she laughed. "Oh my GOD! It was you!"

"Charlie!" Dylan squealed.

"Charlie did what?" Bosley asked.

"You're the snitch?!" Alex asked.

"Angels, people like that destroy themselves," he repeated. "Now, the meetings over. Take a breather. You've earned it."

Bosley was still blinking as Dylan laughed, shaking her head. "A vacation. I've heard that before."

"We love you, Charlie!" Alex said, kissing Bosley on the cheek as she rose. "Bye, Bos!"

"I... uh... huh..." Bosley considered.

"Love you!" Natalie said, waving behind her as she walked to the door.

"Bosley?" Charlie asked as Dylan shut the door behind them.

Bosley continued to sit, until his eyes flew to the screen, and suddenly it made sense.

"You turned in MARY!" he breathed suddenly. "Charlie! You dog!"

Charlie laughed, a deep, wonderful sound.

"Why'd you do it?" Bosley asked.

The laughter stopped, and when Charlie finally answered, his voice was serious.

"Mary Briggs tried to have the Angels killed. She almost succeeded. Bosley, my girls are the best there is. They take care of the world. But I take care of my Angels."

For some reason, those words filled a part of Bosley that made the smile on his face ridiculously big. Bosley never felt more proud of his job, who he worked for.

"Right on, Charlie," he said, settling back on the couch. "Right on."

--

**EPILOGUE**

In downtown Los Angeles was a penthouse flat that had been deserted.

The wood floorboards were a polished varnish, the nut brown a stark but rich contrast to the pearl white of the walls and ceiling.

Decorations were rosaries and ancient weaponry, and a small photo of a silent boy in a suit and tie, sitting next to a nun with a passive, angry expression on his face.

Dylan plucked the frame off the dresser, lips drifting into a soft smile as she traced the dust off the image.

"Dylan! Where do you want this?"

Turning, she discovered Pete and Jason, sweating as they held a television between them, swaying under its weight in the doorway.

"Um... there, I guess," she answered, putting the frame back and coming forward.

"Okay, I know I said it once," Alex said, moving around the boyfriends with a box of her own, marked 'shoes', "But can we discuss Mink Oil before we tromp around the dirty world in Alex's boots?" Removing a familiar pair, her friend waved them emphatically in Dylan's direction as she plopped the box on the floor. "Because, it's not like they cost six-hundred dollars or anything."

"What are you so bent out of shape for?" Natalie asked, easily toting clothes attached to hangers. "Dylan's big boobs stretched my shirt so out of shape I need to get a boob job just to fill it out-"

"Then I guess I can have it," Dylan said, yanking it out of her fingers and winking.

"Dylan!" Bosley called, almost an echo from the other side of the flat. "You gonna eat this caviar?"

"Take it, Bos," Dylan called out, throwing the shirt on the bed. "That's not mine."

"Nice place," Alex said, surveying the room critically. "So..." coming forward, she managed a hesitant grin. "I just gotta make sure. You moving into Anthony's old place – not some indication that ... theoretically, you're going to be... I don't know... living with him-"

"In spirit?" Dylan asked, wry amusement tilting her lips up.

"Alex-" Natalie began.

"Hey! I'll admit – he saved our lives, okay? But he's you know... still creepy!"

Dylan laughed, wrapping an arm around her friend to bring her in closer. "I don't think so, Alex. He's kinda on the run, and yes, I may have slept with him once, but considering I haven't seen or heard from him in about three months, I'm guessing it's safe to say it's not a relationship."

"But you're moving into his place," Natalie reminded her, rubbing into her back with a small smile. "And you're not changing anything about it."

"Of course not," Dylan said quietly. Dark eyes roved around the apartment. "It's his. I'm just subletting." Blowing out her breath, she surveyed the space, the low, angled ceilings, the spot where months ago she had held Alex and Natalie back by the point of his sword. "I just... I've been in a hotel for years. And it's time I got myself a home. Something that says... Dylan Sanders."

"Creepy White Starkness says Dylan Sanders?" Alex asked flatly.

"Well, it sure as hell doesn't say 'Helen Zaas'," Dylan said with a squeeze.

"I like it," Natalie decided, turning around the room. "And look at the floorspace! Dylan, we won't have to go to the Academy anymore! We can just set up here-"

"OH MY GOD! ALEX!" Jason squealed, nearly hopping up like a rabbit as he motioned emphatically to a hidden corner. "HE'S GOT A HIGH DEFINITION BIGSCREEN TELEVISION WITH SURROUND SOUND! Dylan! You're SO HAVING THE SUPERBOWL PARTY!"

"I think I got Jason's vote," Dylan said wryly.

Pete suddenly yelped, when he fell into a compartment that opened when he pushed a button. There was a sufficient amount of crashing.

"PETE!"

"Oh, wow – check this out!" Voice muffled, he nevertheless didn't sound like he was in any pain. Eyebrow arching, Dylan shrugged, following her friends to Pete's area, when a bar swung out from his hiding place.

Pete beamed at them. "FULLY STOCKED! And – check it out, Nat!" He grinned happily as he shook a jar at them. "Cherries!"

"Oh, wow!" Natalie smiled, grabbing it from him. "I love cherries!"

"Want me to pop it for you?!"

Alex blinked, and Dylan shook her head, shoulders shaking with mirth. "I ... I can't... it's just too easy..."

"There are no words," Alex agreed.

"Dylan! Check this out!" Perched on top of one of the angled walls, Max Bosley gave her a happy wave, one foot on his skateboard. "Watch this!"

"MAXWELL BOSLEY!" came a screech. "I spent all morning cleaning blood off that floor! Don't you dare- GET DOWN FROM THERE!"

"Mrs. Bosley, it's not a proble-" Dylan began.

The elder woman gave her a disgruntled wave. "Please, girl – you don't know nothing. You'll ruin these floors in a week. MAX! DOWN!"

"Awww – Mom!"

"What the hell?!" A pile of boxes attached to a set of legs appeared in the doorway. "Am I the only one still carrying these damned things?! Oh, hell no!" Two boxes fell from the top, revealing Bosley's face peaking through. "Ya'll better get your asses down here to help me!"

Just then, yapping was heard, and more boxes crashed as two streaks, one golden brown, the other a dark black, zig-zagged through Bosley's legs. Their boss yelped, and yet more boxes fell.

Dylan winced. "Oh, God – I hope those weren't breakable."

"Dylan," Alex said automatically. "Your bungalow looked like it belonged to a twelve-year old boy. There was nothing breakable in there."

"No! I had that model of Princess Leia..." It was probably more prudent to stop talking whenever Alex gave her that withering stare.

Luckily, the black blur skidded into focus, and Dylan was saved from Alex's "Let's discuss how to act your age" speech by a miniature Doberman pinscher, pawing at her leg and yodeling slightly. Alex smiled, reaching down to gather the puppy in her arms, just as Spike decided it was a good idea to chew at Dylan's jeans while they were still attached to her legs.

Reaching down, she tugged the dog away, grunting under the big dog's heavy weight, craning her neck to keep away from the seriously long big pink tongue.

Beside her, Alex wiped down her dog's eyes carefully, cleaning them with her finger.

"Having fun?" Dylan asked.

Shoulders shrugging with an over-exaggerated sigh, Alex muttered, "When I got him Jason PROMISED to take care of him, but nooo. I walk him. I bathe him. All Jason likes to do is play with him!"

"I still can't believe you and Jason have a dog!" Dylan said with a smile. "You hate dogs!"

"I still do," Alex said stiffly. "But Mr. Twinkle is not a dog. He's my baby!"

Amusement almost made Dylan burst out laughing. Keeping her lips closed, she managed to venture a simple query. "Mr. Twinkle? I thought Jason said his name was Killer."

"His NAME," Alex said, covering her dog's ears and narrowing her eyes at Dylan, "Is Mr. Twinkle. And stop using that word around him! He's going to start thinking it's his name, and then he'll start to answer to it, and we'll be back where we started."

"KILLER!"

Alex's eyes closed in irritation as Jason came running forward, gathering the little dog into his arms and suddenly delving into baby-talk gibberish. "Killer wanna see the TV? Yes he does! YES he does!"

"MR. TWINKLE!" Alex called after him as he rushed away.

"Wow, Alex," Natalie said, motioning behind her, laughing as Spike suddenly jumped from Dylan's arms to jump at her legs. "You're living with him. You have a dog. You know, you'd almost thing you were... in love with him!"

"Yeah, what's that about?" Dylan asked innocently, teasing grin growing as Alex's face turned pink.

"Shut up, I don't want to talk about it," Alex said, pointing at them both. "He wanted a gesture, so I gave him one."

With that, she walked away, more than likely intent on reigniting the 'Killer vs. Mr. Twinkle' debacle.

"She's probably giving him a 'gesture' every night," Dylan said flatly.

Natalie smiled, slipping a palm around her waist, pulling her in.

"So," she said finally, gazing down at her with beautifully warm blue eyes. "How are you?"

The meaning and annotation had never been clearer.

Dylan sighed, lips twisting into a wry grin as she squeezed back. "Natalie, it's been three months. You can stop asking. I'm fine. I'm perfect." Glancing over the flat, Dylan took it in, filled with Alex and Jason, fighting over names, Pete still enamored with the bar, Max tripping on a stair and stubbing Bosley's toe... "How could I not be?" she asked, looking deep into her friend's eyes. "I'm home."

--

The flat was still piled high with boxes.

"You know it's amazing how much crap you actually had in that little teeny bungalow," Alex remarked, hands on her hips as she surveyed the scene.

"Hey, you know, half that crap was yours," Dylan said, tossing another piles of clothes next to the dresser.

Alex shot her a wide-eyed look. "Because you borrowed them all and never gave them back!"

Dylan arched an eyebrow, shaking her head as she reached down, pulling out another white shirt. Fingers running over the material, she gave Alex a glance. "It's amazing how many pairs of the same shirt this guy had."

Eyes on the shirt, she never saw her friends expression. When Alex spoke, however, she was gentle, soft. "You sure you don't want me to stay longer? I can help you with that."

"No..." Dylan smiled, glancing over the flat, chaotic and messy and everything that the Thin Man was not. "No... I think I want to do this alone."

"Sure," Alex said smoothly. "Well, then I'm gonna take off. I have to take the dog out. Jason will forget and then he pees on the floor-"

"Jason pees on the floor?"

"No, the dog," Alex said, smile forming on her mouth as she began to laugh. "Though I do have my suspicions."

Dylan laughed, a release from the emotion building in her chest that was both exhilarating and welcome. "Then you better go."

"Yeah." Coming forward, Alex spread her touch across the shirt. "He had good taste."

"Yeah," Dylan said. Her friend was silent beside her, but it was not unexpected when Dylan felt the cool press of lips against her temple. Her eyes closed involuntarily at the embrace.

"See you tomorrow," Alex whispered.

"Night," Dylan said, as her partner and friend clicked her way across the floor, opening the door and heading out. "Alex?"

Pausing, Alex glanced back.

Dylan smiled. "I love you."

Alex took that in, and with a smile and a nod, she blew her a kiss. "You have no idea how much, Dylan."

The door closed behind her, and Dylan was alone.

Alone in the flat, she found herself unable to keep emptying drawers. Exhaustion had given way to another emotion, curious and unknown.

Wearing one of his shirts, soft and comfortable against her skin, she found herself walking the flat, glancing at artifacts, mementos, things that made him... him.

In the corner, near the bar, and away from the surround sound, was an antique record player.

Dylan fingered it, running digits along the wood surface, thin layer of dust adding to the ancient feeling.

She smiled. "I bet I knew what you played."

Feeling underneath the player, she found a latch, and opened the compartment below.

Pulling one from the sleeve, she studied the LP, observing the tiny scratches, emoting by touch, fingering the grooves.

Sitting up, she carefully placed the record in the player, setting the power and watching it spin.

When the needle was inserted, scratchy, authentic trumpets began to fill the room, a sound she had come to appreciate.

_Fly me to the moon, let me sail among the stars..._

From the refrigerator, she removed a Heineken, a housewarming present from Pete, and slowly sank down on the leather couch, a present from Charlie.

Her eyes closed, lost in the music, happily dizzy from the taste of the bear.

A sound that seemed out of place opened her eyes.

Curious, Dylan glanced toward the bed.

A breeze was blowing from the now open window directly above it.

Cocking her head, Dylan pushed off the couch, moving forward to discover a cane, polished and shiny, lying on the stark white of the bed.

It hadn't been there before.

Placing the beer on the dresser, Dylan ignored her inner Alex, chirping about water stains, and ruined antique furniture, and instead fingered the cane, pulling at the tip, finding the silver blade gleaming from an inch above.

Her smile widened. She wasn't surprised.

But she was happy. Unapologetically so.

"You know," she said, loud and clear. "I'm going to keep this one."

She turned, and there he was.

The sideburns were gone, but he still tweezed, still wore a suit, still wore no expression but a passive stare.

"I'm house-sitting," she explained, shrugging at the apartment. "I figured you weren't using it."

He said nothing, staring at her the way he was, bewildered and confused, but not angry.

She kept her grip on the sword, rubbing it between her fingertips.

There were certain truths that Dylan was certain of.

He wasn't going to stay. He couldn't.

She could never ask him to.

Anthony stepped forward, one foot in front of the other, closer and closer to her and a bed.

When she felt her legs buckle, her rump sink into the bed, and she watched him step closer, Dylan understood a few things.

This was more than likely going to be rest of her life. There was no more normal. There was no relationship – but only glimpses and snatches of what as well might be a dream – because he would only come at night, and he wouldn't be here in the morning.

Her eyes closed as he touched her, tangled fingers in her hair, leaning close, smelling of smoke and gel and HIM. When his lips brushed alongside her neck, burying in her hair, she felt THAT SIGH come from him.

Her palm gently rubbed into his hair, soft where she thought it would be hard, bringing him closer.

Her back sank into the mattress, and he was there, above her, silent and never gentle, and always in love.

He wasn't going to stay. This was never going to be normal. Eventually, she would probably hate him for it, because Dylan wanted normal, and all she never wanted was him.

She would not have chosen this.

It wouldn't be enough forever. But it was her life. This was Dylan Sanders' life.

His lips came down, and when he kissed her, she kissed him back, fervently, desperately, whole-heartedly.

This was her life.

And she didn't care if he wouldn't be there in the morning.

She would still love him when he was gone.

**FIN**

***notes**  
_- the image of Dylan living in the 'rock n' roll' hotel, aka the Chateau in Hollywood - was actually taken from the official website. Considering those bungalows are pretty freaking expensive - it's no wonder the girl is broke. The Angels must get paid very, very well.  
- Much love to SlackerUK, Syn, Nightspore, Findle, and Fauxophy for their wonderful encouragement and help with the fic throughout the creation. Many a night were spent on AIM while I pounded this puppy out, and it wouldn't have happened without their listening ears.  
- There is a 'behind the scenes' parody that I'm writing that describes the writing process and motivations behind the fic currently being posted at my LJ. (.com/users/mistiec).  
- The fiction, once completely beta'd will be presented at Imperfect, my online archive, along with art, and additional author's notes. (/imperfect).  
- Once again - thanks for everyone who read this and kept going even as it got freaking LONG. I definitely never expected as many reviews as I got and it was a definite inspiration. Thanks again._

Misty Flores


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